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Night Bird and the Free Software Metaphor
So last night the bird ended up staying on the roof well into the night. It looked and acted healthy, but they're not meant to remain exposed like this overnight. They're vulnerable in isolation. Similarly, it's unsafe for humans to be out when it's dark, especially when (or if) everyone else isn't out.
In the Free Software Community, or in the Free Software Movement (FSM) as the Free Software Foundation (FSF) might call it, people need to become parts of large groups or work with other groups. Sharing and collaboration make better, safer code. They say there's "strength in numbers" and they say transparency (or daylight) can decrease suspicion, mistrust, mischief.
Flocks of Free Software (libre code) developers make strong communities, whereas with proprietary software that typically means colleagues because only one company develop its software. Once this company dies, the software will rot and its users will rot too. We wrote about this on Christmas Day. █