Thanks Adam, this is definetly something to write a paper about.
I think innovative ideas will not come from a a team of 100 people (o more than 2000 if you count all OpenACS members). The ideas will come from smaller teams were the conditions are met. People in Boston are lucky in this sense (but you don't have the beaches I have!) since there is a critical mass.
OpenACS provides the infrastructure, the innovation will come from its components and the architectural design. Each component is made by a small closely knit group of people, and the "global" architectural innovation comes from the core design team.
Brooks in The mythical man month talks about "conceptual integrity", that usually is set up by a lead architect and then made a product by the people implementing it. In fact he has a great metaphor about how great cathedrals were made over several generations by architects that followed an original vision.
Phillip probably defined ACS vision quite well in his book and around the ACS classic. Time will tell if this vision is followed or a new approach is taken by the future architects.
