Here is a very good interview with Linus Torvalds. Listen to what he has to say on the innovation hype:

‘I think that ‘innovation’ is a four-letter word in the industry. It should never be used in polite company. It’s become a PR thing to sell new versions with.
It was Edison who said ‘1% inspiration, 99% perspiration’. That may have been true a hundred years ago. These days it’s ‘0.01% inspiration, 99.99% perspiration’, and the inspiration is the easy part. As a project manager, I have never had trouble finding people with crazy ideas. I have trouble finding people who can execute. IOW, ‘innovation” is way oversold. And it sure as hell shouldn’t be applied to products like MS Word or Open office.
So no, I don’t think people need ore innovation. I’d rather see more people sell their product on some plain old-fashioned ‘being good’.

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