* [The Kerberos play](http://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dialogue.html): explains why Kerberos works the way it does
* [The Rise of Worse is Better](http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html): a brief description of the single coding philosophy that most influenced the design of UNIX and many related systems. The [entire article](http://web.mit.edu/geofft/Public/gabriel-on-lisp.ps), rather than just the section, is available in PostScript
* Tim Berners-Lee's [Design Issues](http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/) section, and his piece on why [Cool URIs Don't Change](http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI)
+ * [How To Ask Questions The Smart Way](http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html How To Ask Questions The Smart Way) -- A document on asking questions in hacker communities in ways that will help you get answers. Many of its points apply to places like Zephyr, too.
* A definition of [yak shaving](http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb2000-02-11.html), which you'll often find SIPB members unwisely engaging in.
* [GNU Philosophy](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html), hardline but worth reading.
* On that note, the [GPLv3](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) and [GPLv2](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html). Dense legal style, but also worth reading once, to understand what free software is about