At time index 22:35, Bjarne Stroustrup explains in this video what he thinks is very special about organisatrions like Cambridge or Bell Labs. When I just heard him explain this, I couldn’t help but think of Debian. This is exactly how I felt (and actually still do) when I joined Debian as a Developer in 2002. This is, what makes Debian, amongst other things, very special to me.
If you don’t want to watch the video, here is the excerpt I am talking about:
One of the things that Cambridge could do, and later Bell Labs could do, is somehow raise peoples expectations of themselves. Raise the level that is considered acceptable. You walk in and you see what people are doing, you see how people are doing, you see how apparently easily they do it, and you see how nice they are while doing it, and you realize, I better sharpen up my game. This is something where you have to, you just have to get better. Because, what is acceptable has changed. And some organisations can do that, and well, most can’t, to that extent. And I am very very lucky to be in a couple places that actually can increase your level of ambition, in some sense, level of what is a good standard.