Constructive gang

A couple of months ago I was walking in the street and passed in front of me two teenagers with malicious smiles. A few seconds later the bin exploded. The explosion was quite strong, lots of garbage flew away, and with the number of people around it could have easily be hurting someone. But the boys definitely seemed to have had a good time.

It's quite usual to see these gangs of teenagers hanging around without much aim, talking a lot, and from time to time having fun by breaking something. I can somehow understand why those boys are doing this: it allows them to motivate their presence, feel they are doing something together, and change their mind.

What is interesting is that open source contributers are doing exactly the same thing... with the little twist that instead of taking the easy road of destroying things, they are creating things. They come together via internet, they chat and from time to time they add a little contribution to the edifice. No actual big aim, just because it's cool. Well, the difference is that creating is much harder than destroying but also much more gratifying!