Complexity

-Brooks "The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one."
and "not all complexity is inevitable" and "The essence of a software entity is a construct of interlocking concepts...[this] essence is abstract."

-Lars Sodahl "In my experience most of the complexities which are encountered in systems work are symptoms of organizational malfunctions. Trying to model this reality with equally complex programs is actually to conserve the mess instead of solving the problems."

Q: Is there a difference in the way Open Source developers deal with complexity of programming than the way it is within closed source projects? How do people share their understanding of the abstract? What are the ways of communicating abstract visualizations of programs? Is something lost when the only medium of communication is written text?