Coding

Martin Fowler - Code Ownership: "There are various schemes of Code Ownership that I've come across. I put them into three broad categories:
Strong code ownership breaks a code base up into modules (classes, functions, files) and assigns each module to one developer. Developers are only allowed to make changes to modules they own. If they need a change made to someone else's module they need to talk to the module owner and get them to make the change. You can accelerate this process by writing a patch for the other module and sending that to the module owner.
Weak code ownership is similar in that modules are assigned to owners, but different in that developers are allowed to change modules owned by other people. Module owners are expected to take responsibility for the modules they own and keep an eye on changes made by other people. If you want to make a substantial change to someone else's module it's polite to talk it over with the module owner first.
Collective code ownership abandons any notion of individual ownership of modules. The code base is owned by the entire team and anyone may make changes anywhere. You can consider this as no code ownership, but it's advocate prefer the emphasis on the notion of ownership by a team as opposed to an individual."

This is an interesting observation. Psychologically, people like strong code ownership. If you take a pride in your work, it is almost inevitable.

I have worked on weak code ownership as a system. Forced integrations every two weeks. Negotiations with the other owners for changes to their code. Integrator is responsible for resolving other issues.

However, as you move towards continuous integration, I think there is more justification for collective ownership. After all, you still get the psychological satisfaction of knowing who broke the code! :-)