"We intend to integrate free, positive changes from whatever sources will provide them, providing they are well thought-out and increase the usability of the system...Above all, we hope to create a stable and accessible system, and to be responsive to the needs and desires of NetBSD users, because it is for and because of them that NetBSD exists."

Announcement of first release of NetBSD

"The biggest surprise to me was the level of involvement that firms engage in with community forms on software development and standard setting in general. That is, forms that are not government sponsored nor formally constituted by partnership, alliance, or consortia agreements."

Siobhán O'Mahony, Assistant Professor of Management, UCDavis

"The creation and management of boundary objects is key in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds."

Star and Griesemer

The objective of this article is to examine how software licenses in build and shape political and technological boundaries.

"...looking at open-source practices in the computer game community [...] what we see is something different than what's advocated in the principles of software engineering."

Walt Scacchi

Having been involved with open source projects since before the term "open source" was coined, I'm often asked to define "open source". My usual one word answer is not "code" or "license", but "community". For the essence and differentiator of any open source project is defined by the individuals it attracts and how their interactions provide the momentum needed to sustain the project's long term goals.

"Engagement--in which institutions and communities form lasting relationships that influence, shape, and promote success in both spheres--is rare. More frequently, there is evidence of unilateral outreach, rather than partnership based on mutual benefit, mutual respect, and mutual accountability."

W.K. Kellogg Foundation

"All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual."

Albert Einstein

"The other driver of innovation is awareness of a gap between what there is and what there ought to be, between what people need and what they are offered by governments, private firms and NGOs--a gap which is constantly widened by the emergence of new technologies and new scientific knowledge."

Geoff Mulgan, et al

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

Winston Churchill