The Open Source theorem says that if you give away source code, innovation will occur. Certainly, Unix was done this way... However, the corollary states that the innovation will occur elsewhere. No matter how many people you hire. So the only way to get close to the state of the art is to give the people who are going to be doing the innovative things the means to do it. That's why we had built-in source code with Unix. Open source is tapping the energy that's out there.
Interpretation
Sharing code fosters innovation, but it can happen outside your organization.
Bill Joy's quote emphasizes the importance of open source in driving innovation. He explains that while making source code available can lead to creative breakthroughs, those innovations may originate from external sources rather than within a company itself. By providing the tools and freedom for developers to experiment and create, organizations may benefit from external advancements that could elevate technology to new heights.
In practice
During a tech conference, you can use this quote to highlight the benefits of open source software.
If you stay up late and you have another hour of work to do, you can just stay up another hour later without running into a wall and having to stop. Whereas it might take three or four hours if you start over, you might finish if you just work that extra hour. If you're a morning person, the day always intrudes a fixed amount of time in the future. So it's much less efficient. Which is why I think computer people tend to be night people - because a machine doesn't get sleepy.
And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species - to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.
You can't solve a problem with the management of technology with more technology.
There's no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.
The tech industry - and, more specifically, Silicon Valley - continues to stumble forward in earnest about how few women are represented in its top ranks of management and on its boards.
Together, we could open up government and invite citizens in, while connecting all of America to 21st century broadband. We could use technology to help achieve universal health care, to reach for a clean energy future, and to ensure that young Americans can compete - and win - in the global economy.
What I think is coming instead are much more organic ways of organizing information than our current categorization schemes allow, based on two units - the link, which can point to anything, and the tag, which is a way of attaching labels to links. The strategy of tagging - free-form labeling, without regard to categorical constraints - seems like a recipe for disaster, but as the Web has shown us, you can extract a surprising amount of value from big messy data sets.
The only way you multiply resources is with technology. To really affect poverty, energy, health, education, or anything else - there is no other way.
The internet has been a boon and a curse for teenagers.
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