Before Henry Ford unleashed the practice of mass production on the world, every little town had a few dozen artisans who made the lives of citizens easier. A cobbler made the shoes, a tailor sewed suits and a carpenter built furniture. Mass production sounded the death knell for many specialist craft jobs, and the rise of computerised supply chains finished off most of the rest. But now, a century later, the trend is reversing itself. The new craftsmen do not stitch leather, cut cloth or saw wood: instead, they write software.

Via Ranchero Software.

I've thought for quite a while that small teams of developers collaborating with each other by using Open Source software can create much better solutions than huge monolithic organizations. This was also a central theme in Eric Raymond's Cathedral and the Bazaar.