Engineers like working with other talented engineers. However nowadays they most often congregate inside big companies, isolated along the commercial interests of their employers. Outside the walls of these castles the software plebeians swarm at pedestrian public meetups, awaiting the day they too can swear fealty to a big company.
We can do better than this. We can live in a more interesting world. I'm imagining another venue for engineers to perform fundamental and meaningful work. It's a sort of never-ending conference, an invitation-only coworking space that requires active participation. Most importantly it is one in which everyone develops open source software.
Open source has created and will continue to create the best, most revolutionary products the world has known. This is because its top priorities are generality and pride in workmanship, not satisfying the demands and timelines of a particular customer. It is the software of goodness, not servitude.