Prior to his exposure to the Linux project, Raymond believed that something as complex as an operating system had to be developed "like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation..." Raymond recounted that, on the other hand, "the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches... out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles."
How a coherent and stable system could emerge from apparent chaos is the gist of Raymond's article, which is quite engaging. Raymond talks about the importance of releasing code early and often, before it is thoroughly tested and most of the bugs are fixed. This is because "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." In other words, when sufficient numbers of developers are able to scrutinize source code, "almost every problem will be quickly (identified) and the fix (will be) obvious to someone." Open source increases the speed with which bugs are detected and fixed because it gives everyone an opportunity to be involved in the process. Open source leverages economies of scale that are unrealized in the proprietary software world.