Fire has a design flaw: it won’t stay lit on its own. You can light it, protect it, and arrange the logs just right, but if no one looks after it, the flames fade. First slowly, then suddenly, until only ashes remain.

Open knowledge works the same way. It doesn’t last forever just because we hope it will. Keeping it going takes real effort, and right now, most of us enjoy its benefits without thinking about who is keeping it alive.

If you zoom out, the metaphor writes itself. The open-source libraries powering your favorite app? Maintained by a handful of volunteers, often late at night after their actual jobs. Scientific papers shaping global policy? Kept in fragile repositories at underfunded universities. Tutorials and community docs that help you fix bugs or set up a server? Shared by people who believe in passing the torch.

Still, we often forget. We treat open knowledge like an endless streaming service, expecting unlimited content without considering the effort that goes into it. We use, adapt, and share, but when it comes to giving back, most people stay quiet.

I’ve seen it up close. A friend of a friend maintains a popular open-source library used by tens of thousands of developers and large companies. He works on it in stolen moments, and his sponsorships barely pay for coffee. He keeps at it, sustaining the project day after day. Still, I wonder how much longer he can keep going.

The truth is, the fire is dimming in places we can’t afford it to. Maintainers are burning out. Knowledge repositories are underfunded. Some of the brightest minds behind the infrastructure of our digital world are quietly slipping away because they can’t keep giving without receiving in return. And here’s the kicker: if the fire goes out, we all freeze.

But there’s hope. With care, what’s fading can be revived. That’s where you come in, not as a spectator, but as someone with energy to share. Contribution isn’t just writing code or authoring papers. It’s funding maintainers, improving documentation, answering forum questions, translating tutorials, or simply giving credit to those doing the work.

And yes, if you’re a company profiting from the commons, your responsibility is clear: directly support the resources you depend on. Patching your private fork isn’t enough. If your business depends on an open project, you’re more than a consumer. You’re a steward! That means investing in maintainers through funding and staffing, participating in project governance, and ensuring your improvements benefit the broader community. It’s not for PR, but for survival. Ignore the fire, and the cold will return.

There’s a story I keep coming back to. The philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote that every generation inherits a world in flames, and our task is not only to preserve it but to add something of our own before passing it forward. That’s what this is. Open knowledge is not a static monument; it’s alive because we keep it going. It doesn’t need a god to steal it for us again. It needs us, here, now, to keep it vibrant.

If you care about open knowledge, act now. Contribute code, write documentation, fund projects, share resources, teach others, and publicly recognize maintainers. Don’t wait, pick one action today and help keep the fire burning for the future.

Your effort sustains open knowledge for the next person. Take a step today. Someone’s future work depends on it.: it won’t stay lit on its own. You can light it, protect it, and arrange the logs just right, but if no one looks after it, the flames fade. First slowly, then suddenly, until only ashes remain.

Open knowledge works the same way. It doesn’t last forever just because we hope it will. Keeping it going takes real effort, and right now, most of us enjoy its benefits without thinking about who is keeping it alive.

If you zoom out, the metaphor writes itself. The open-source libraries powering your favorite app? Maintained by a handful of volunteers, often late at night after their actual jobs. Scientific papers shaping global policy? Kept in fragile repositories at underfunded universities. Tutorials and community docs that help you fix bugs or set up a server? Shared by people who believe in passing the torch.

Still, we often forget. We treat open knowledge like an endless streaming service, expecting unlimited content without considering the effort that goes into it. We use, adapt, and share, but when it comes to giving back, most people stay quiet.

I’ve seen it up close. A friend of a friend maintains a moderately popular open-source library used by tens of thousands of developers. Big companies rely on it in production systems that process millions of dollars in transactions. He works on it between family dinners and freelance gigs. His GitHub sponsors page? It barely covers his coffee budget. Imagine being the person who keeps the oxygen flowing in the room while everyone else is making money breathing it. Still, he does it each and every day. Even if I think that the spark that once ignited the flame has long since died out. He still keeps on burning, but for how much longer?

The truth is, the fire is dimming in places we can’t afford it to. Maintainers are burning out. Knowledge repositories are underfunded. Some of the brightest minds behind the infrastructure of our digital world are quietly slipping away because they can’t keep giving without receiving in return. And here’s the kicker: if the fire goes out, we all freeze.

But there’s hope. With care, what’s fading can be revived. That’s where you come in, not as a spectator, but as someone with energy to share. Contribution isn’t just writing code or authoring papers. It’s funding maintainers, improving documentation, answering forum questions, translating tutorials, or simply giving credit to those doing the work.

And yes, if you’re a company profiting from the commons, your responsibility is clear: directly support the resources you depend on. Patching your private fork isn’t enough. If your business depends on an open project, you’re more than a consumer. You’re a steward! That means investing in maintainers through funding and staffing, participating in project governance, and ensuring your improvements benefit the broader community. It’s not for PR, but for survival. Ignore the fire, and the cold will return.

There’s a story I keep coming back to. The philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote that every generation inherits a world in flames, and our task is not only to preserve it but to add something of our own before passing it forward. That’s what this is. Open knowledge is not a static monument; it’s alive because we keep it going. It doesn’t need a god to steal it for us again. It needs us, here, now, to keep it vibrant.

If you care about open knowledge, act now. Contribute code, write documentation, fund projects, share resources, teach others, and publicly recognize maintainers. Don’t wait, pick one action today and help keep the fire burning for the future.

Your effort sustains open knowledge for the next person. Take a step today, someone’s future work depends on it.