Thompson and Ritchie were among the first to realize that hardware and compiler technology had become good enough that an entire operating system could be written in C, and by 1978 the whole environment had been successfully ported to several machines of different types.

You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.

Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.

It is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature

The Wesnoth devs are good but not exceptionally so, and we're weighed down by a crappy implementation language (C++). Nevertheless our productivity, in terms of goals achieved per hour of work, is quite high.

If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.

Software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry