Linus Torvalds’ open development policy was the opposite of cathedral-building. Linus’s innovation wasn’t so much in doing quick-turnaround releases incorporating lots of user feedback, but in scaling it up to a level of intensity that matched the complexity of what he was developing. Linux’s Internet archives were burgeoning, multiple distributions were being floated. And all of this was driven by an unheard-of frequency of core system releases. The whole design of Linux breathes this quality.”]
Source: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html