Software bug analysis

Everybody's always arguing about open source code quality. This week Wired's saying linux is better. They quote numbers from static source code analysis. My problem with this is that it just looks at implementation. Bugs can be implementation or design. I think an open, iterative approach which can unapologetically drop old interfaces/implementations can generate better designs over time as well as better implementations. A better design will be cleaner and simpler and a better implementation will be more likely to follow as an implementer can better understand what's going on.

I've worked on lots of products full on implementation bugs that follow directly from poor design and especially design/implementation documentation over time. The linux kernel and many open source projects have an implementation that is hashed out collaboratively online and in a searchable forum, leading to at least some documentation.