Smallish post 5

Open source programming is not very intuitive.  I, like most people, think at first that open source development is not an efficient way of developing useful software.  It may be because I have been conditioned to accept software from Microsoft to be the way things things work.  They make it and distribute it, I buy it and use it.  If I come across a problem I send them an email or an automated error report about the problem that I'm having.  Not once have I ever received a personal response back about how to fix the problem or receive an acknowledgement they are even aware of the problem.  Open source programming approaches it fundamentally different.  Everyone is working together, as "co-developers" as Eric Raymond puts it in his article  The Cathedral and the Bazaar.  There is unity, which is a contributing factor to their success.  Communication is more open and it is not as if the programmer and the user are on two sides of a continuously waging war.