Raymond's quip may be somewhat hyperbolic for effect, but I think it's harder to argue with the assertion that "with many eyes, many bugs are shallow". True, th

Raymond's quip may be somewhat hyperbolic for effect, but I think it's harder to argue with the assertion that "with many eyes, many bugs are shallow". True, there are some things that are esoteric and which only a few very specially trained persons would notice, but in many cases, it's not that way. The fact that a random person will show up on the mailing lists of open-source projects, even minor ones, and have a bugfix patch validates the theory that an open codebase contributes significantly to software quality, and particularly a greater degree of software buglessness. I think that people who argue over Raymond's quip are just being pedants. It's true that not all bugs will be shallow, no matter how many eyes are on software, but I don't think the expression was meant to be taken literally.