According to Wikipedia, “Innovation in its modern meaning is a new idea, creative thoughts, new imaginations in the form of device or method. Innovation is also often viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs or existing market needs. Such innovation takes place through the provision of more effective products, processes, services, technologies or business models that are made available to markets, governments and society.”

Personally, I like the use of the term “more effective” above. It says something important which is often missing in open source products. It’s not good enough to only write beautifully-engineered technology, because that’s often not what counts as more effective in the eyes of those who buy. We need to think through the whole context outside of engineering – the processes, the services, the business models etc – and we need to ensure that the big picture looks and feels more effective overall. Read more