Free markets select for winning solutions.

A critical factor in its success was that the X developers were willing to give the sources away for free in accordance with the hacker ethic, and able to distribute them over the Internet.

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.

With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.

Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)

We hackers are a playful bunch; we'll hack anything, including language, if it looks like fun (thus our tropism for puns). Deep down, we like confusing people who are stuffier and less mentally agile than we are, especially when they're bosses. There's a little bit of the mad scientist in all hackers, ready to discombobulate the world and flip authority the finger - especially if we can do it with snazzy special effects.

It is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature