Now everything is moving to open office or has already moved :(, I envy the people that still have their own office.

I've noticed it's usually the management.

They tend to say "Well, you know I have to occasionally participate in super-secret phone calls," which we all know is an excuse.

Did you read the part about 'Library Rules'? It's a cultural leap, but that would make all the difference.

Christ, I'm sitting in an open plan office right now with two telephone conversations going on in my right ear.

Thank the hardware overlords for headphones ...

That office plan, and 'Library Rules', are particularly stupid in a world of lack of thought. That is, it's worse than just not thinking about it at all.

3-5 people in the office at any given day? Just build offices, christ.

One of the founders must have had a particular itch to scratch is all, and it has cost the company money so that they could have the worst of all worlds

The 'Library Rules' are dumb because one of the prime reasons you need to make noise in an open office is to share a screen with someone, as you collaborate or problem solve or whatever. This is hard to do if you have to move to a quiet room because you can't move your monitor setup with you, or have the comfort and access of the things at your desk.

Even non-code discussions are easier at your own desk, with kbd and mouse for notes vs laptop and trackpad.

Not being able to talk above a whisper, or at all, at your own desk is a disaster.

I mostly work remote these days but "library rules" in anything but a limited area is silly. If I'm in the office, I have phone calls to participate in and people I want to chat with. If I want to have an extended conversation with someone, I'll (try to) find an alcove but there is zero point to my being in the office if I have to go somewhere private every time I open my mouth.

I have nothing to do with Basecamp, but I understand they're primarily a remote company. I think you're misunderstanding how their space is used.

Yeah, I wonder how much of the disdain for open offices is more of a company culture issue rather a problem with open offices.

What causes people to whisper in libraries but talk loudly and disturb others in an open office plan?

Perhaps some segmentation of open office plans would also be interesting -- a "loud" zone, a semi-quiet zone and a silent zone. I don't know how workable this would be for teams unless you had hot-desking, which is something else people seem to hate, but still. Engineers who need to work on a difficult problem for a while can use the silent zone, while groups who need lots of communication and the perennial extroverts are free to use the louder spaces.

But its fun to talk in the halls! Or debug something verbally with someone at your computer. This is the worst of both worlds. All the drawbacks of a large open space and none of the communication benefits.