Linus's law

In software development, Linus's law is the assertion that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". The law was formulated by Eric S. Raymond in his essay and book The Cathedral and the Bazaar (1999), and was named in honor of Linus Torvalds.[1][2]

A more formal statement is: "Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone." Presenting the code to multiple developers with the purpose of reaching consensus about its acceptance is a simple form of software reviewing. Researchers and practitioners have repeatedly shown the effectiveness of reviewing processes in finding bugs and security issues.[3]

  1. ^ Raymond, Eric S. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". catb.org.
  2. ^ Raymond, Eric S. (1999). The Cathedral and the Bazaar. O'Reilly Media. p. 30. ISBN 1-56592-724-9.
  3. ^ Pfleeger, Charles P.; Pfleeger, Shari Lawrence (2003). Security in Computing, 4th Ed. Prentice Hall PTR. pp. 154–157. ISBN 0-13-239077-9.