Description
Collective code ownership means that everyone is responsible for all the code; this, in turn, means that everybody is allowed to change any part of the code. Pair programming contributes to this practice: by working in different pairs, all the programmers get to see all the parts of the code. A major advantage claimed for collective ownership is that it speeds up the development process, because if an error occurs in the code any programmer may fix it.
By giving every programmer the right to change the code, there is risk of errors being introduced by programmers who think they know what they are doing, but do not foresee certain dependencies. Sufficiently well defined unit tests address this problem: if unforeseen dependencies create errors, then when unit tests are run, they will show failures.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming_Practices#Collective_code_ownership
Firms practicing Collective Code Ownership
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Microplace
Because at MicroPlace we pair and rotate pairs a lot, the code truly belongs to everyone. No one owns a certain aspect of the code base vs. another and fixing /refactoring code we're looking at is not only allowed but also expected. - 2
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