Grokking open source
"Grok" is a word that you may not know, but it has been in use since the 1960's. It is commonly taken to mean "understand" but it is so much more than that. Do you grok open source? The word is the key to understanding why talented developers give of their time.
The word “grok” was coined by popular science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein and was first used in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land. He wrote,
Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed – to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man.
In Heinlein’s stories, the men from Mars exist. Not only do they exist, they’re pretty thirsty it turns out. When they drink water it is such an experience that the Martians become one with the water, the water becomes one with the Martian. They grok each other. Things which once had independent existences become forever intertwined with each other and form a new reality which is greater than the sum of its parts.
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