| Color Of The Bikeshed |
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A Nuclear Power Plant is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. On the other hand, everyone understands a bikeshed, so building one results in endless discussions. Everyone involved wants to add his touch and show that he is there. The adage, "Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?", says: just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the color they plan to paint it. The phrase has often been quoted in collaborative settings such as Wiki s and Open Source Software projects, where "the bikeshed problem" is apparent. People stay quiet on technical issues, but when an issue like indentation formatting or naming conventions arises, everyone has an opinion. HISTORY This expression of the idea was explained by C. Northcote Parkinson in his management book, '' Parkinson's Law '' (1957), and popularized by a 1999 email post by Poul-Henning Kamp to the FreeBSD development mailing list. REFERENCES
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