Thirty years ago, Eric S. Raymond was experimenting with a new way of building software.

The Linux way disrupted the software industry: massively collaborative, powered by the (mostly) unpaid contributions of coders all over the world. It multiplied possibilities and shocked everyone when it proved viable for one of the most complex software projects imaginable at the time: building an enterprise-grade operating system—free, both as in beer and as in freedom.

Raymond’s essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, distilled this experience into “the Linux method,” catalysing the open-source movement and a software development approach that is estimated to have created more than $8.8 trillion in value. That code powers much of today’s digital economy and paved the road for the spectacular rise of the software companies now dominating Wall Street.

Once again, we’re standing at the edge of a paradigm shift—this time powered by the transformer architecture and massive investment in large language models. And, as Raymond did three decades ago—though in my own smaller, humbler way—when I felt an unexpected technical itch earlier this year, I decided to experiment with these new tools and this new way of building software.

This is the story of obsidize and what I learned working on it, and it all started with a simple but annoying itch…