Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

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MENTAL MODEL · M1782

Linus's Law

Linus's Law
Learn & MetacognitionHigh supportCognitive Science
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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

“Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

Open correction. When you encounter a thorny problem, don't struggle alone. Make it public (open source) and leverage the distributed cognitive power of the community. Exposing the problem to sunlight is the fastest way to solve it.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Eric Raymond summarized Linus's Law: with enough eyes (reviewers), any defect becomes shallow—crowdsourced review can improve software quality.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

Check to track your progress (stored locally)
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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27s_lawZH · Explicit
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