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Past years have seen tremendous progress in our understanding of massive star formation, both observationally and theoretically. On one hand, the ever increasing numerical power of supercomputers allows now the incorporation of complex non-linear physical processes altogether. A combination of gravity, turbulence, magnetic field, radiative transport, ionisation, chemistry, are routinely used in today's simulations of star-forming clouds, making them as close to reality as they have ever been. On the other hand, large-scale observational surveys of star-forming regions cover now the entire frequency range of the cold dust's spectral energy distribution. Combined with high-resolution follow-up observations from state-of-the-art (sub-)millimetre interferometers, these observations provide us with an extremely detailed picture of the star formation process across the Galaxy. I will review some of the related literature that discusses the issue of the origin of massive stars. In this context, I will focus my talk on the importance of cloud fragmentation and gas dynamics for high-mass star formation, both on the observational and theoretical fronts, with an emphasis on the significance of stellar feedback.
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