---
title: "The Magic Cauldron (essay)"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Cauldron_(essay)"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:36:33.231250+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

"The Magic Cauldron" is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on the open-source economic model. It can be read freely online and was published in his 1999 book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar.


== Contents ==
The essay analyzes the economic models that Raymond believes can sustain an open-source project in four steps:

It first analyzes what the author sees as classical myths about the cost refund in software development and tries to present a game-theory based model of the supposed stability of open-source cooperation.
Secondly, it presents nine theoretical models that would work for sustainable open-source development: two non-profit, seven for-profit.
Thirdly it states a theory to decide when it is economically interesting for software to remain closed.
Finally, it examines some mechanisms that, according to Raymond, the market invented to fund for-profit open-source development (like patronage system and task markets).


== Publication ==
Raymond, Eric S. (2001). "The Magic Cauldron". The Cathedral and the Bazaar (Paperback ed.). O'Reilly. ISBN 978-0-596-00108-7.
Raymond, Eric S. (6 November 1999). "The Magic Cauldron". Retrieved 21 March 2016.


== See also ==
Revenge of the Hackers


== References ==


== External links ==
Raymond, Eric S. "The Magic Cauldron". The Cathedral and the Bazaar. catb.org. Retrieved 2009-10-14.