OST revealed: 4 principle & 1 law

Open Space Technology (OST) is an approach, a method, to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events. In Open Space workshops, meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance.
While Open Space is known for its apparent lack of structure and welcoming of surprises, it turns out that the Open Space meeting or organization is actually very structured.
Why? The secret of the good functioning Open Space method is due to its four principles and one law, which guide behaviour in Open Space:

1. Whoever comes is the right people, which reminds people in the small groups that getting something done is not a matter of having 100000 people and the chariman of the board. The fundamental requirement is people who care to do somehting. And by showing up, that essential care is demonstrated.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have, keeps people focused on the here and now, and eliminates all of the could-have-beens, should-have-beens or might-have-beens. What is is the only thing there is at the moment.
3. Whenever it starts is the right time alerts peope to the fact that inspired perfomance and genuine creativity rarely, if ever, pay attention to the clock. They happen (or not) when they happen.
4. When it's over it's over, in other words: don't waste time. Do what you have to do, and when its done, move on to something more useful.

The Law of Two Feet: which simply states, if at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet and move to some place more liking to you. A place might be another group, or outside into the sunshine.

References:
- http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/wiki.cgi?AboutOpenSpace
- http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm