Comment by iamnothere

Wtf is a bazaar vendor? A bazaar-style project is a project with a variety of contributors who aren’t necessarily affiliated with a central org, where decisions are made at least partially through consensus. Linux still fits this description although it’s more of a hybrid model at the moment, as decision-making is highly centralized. But as a free/open source project, that centralization exists with implicit community consensus. If a substantial portion of the community decided that Linus and his team were making poor decisions, a fork would emerge. This process of periodic de-/re-centralization is a common attribute of many long-term FOSS projects and is usually not possible with proprietary software, absent generosity or neglect from IP “owners”.