Labor

BSD Free Labor

The newbie to the free software world installs new software for a while, learns to configure and use it. He then finds bugs and requests new features, learns to code, and begins to contribute to the community. After a few years of experience, he begins to sell part of his work, all the while building up the flourishing ecosystem around our free code base. He hires other newbies to help him. This is free labor which comes from free users---a fair ecosystem which opens the way for all, gives hope to all, and improves the condition of all.

Property is the fruit of labor. Property has a positive force on our ecosystem. It is a just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Don't let the one without property try to seize and destroy the property of another. Let him labor diligently and build a code base for himself, and rest assured that his own work shall be safe from theft when built. Wanting to code is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.

Users contributing code is the great source from which all software ecosystems are built upon. No network can survive when more than a small percentage of its users are idle. The great majority of users must work at something productive.

Free users and their labor comes before, and is independent of, intellectual property. Property is only the fruit of the users' labor, and could never have existed if users had not labored in the first place. Users are more important than property, and deserve the much higher consideration. If at any time our users should stop coding, our entire network would soon perish from code rot.

Healthy ecosystems come from users who code, and so the coder deserves his property. But it has so happened in all eras of software, that some have coded, and others have, without coding, enjoyed a large proportion of the profits. This is wrong, and should not continue. A good society should work hard to ensure that each user enjoys the product of his own labor.

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It is the same old argument: You code, and I own; you toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will, whether it come from Silicon Valley or from an organization, it is all the same trick.

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