Open Design != Design by Committee

This is a common reply to my bringing up the idea of open source design.  It usually goes something like - "so everyone one is going to make design decisions? Nothing would get done.  It's better to do it by myself"

True - some projects shouldn't get input, just finish them
True - not all feedback will be useful
True - design by committee sucks

But! this is design by design committee, and where the designer is the owner.  The design by committee is lame because the committee is the group running it, and they don't always have the best design experience to base decisions on.  So the designers spends his/her time educating them and winning them over.

That still needs to happen when designing in the open, but not completely - the designer is the product owner, and chooses the feedback to utilize, no one can take over the project (though they could fork it if it was open source).