For present purposes, however, I think it's more interesting to point out the implications of accepting it as true. That is on the face of it a pretty hard case to make. Rather, it's the demonstrated awfulness of conventional mechanisms for defining the goals of software projects. We're proving not only that we can do better software, but that joy is an asset . A happy programmer is one who is neither underutilized nor weighed down with ill-formulated goals and stressful process friction.
Enjoyment predicts efficiency. .
It may well turn out that one of the most important effects of open source's success will be to teach us that play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work.