Editing Moving from free software to free life (section)

== Free software, Wikipedia and why people contribute ==

There is this addictive quality of giving.  Or, to be more precise, it is addictive (and lovely) to see your gift received and run-with.  When you post to Wikipedia (or submit a patch to Linux) and see a sentence you added grow to a paragraph (or when another developer goes through and cleans up your code)--in both cases this is a complete stranger--and there is a feeling of power and a feeling of gratitude.  You feel power because with only a little effort you precipitated a big change.  You feel gratitude because strangers helped you do it.  It is our experience that these feelings make you want to do it again.  In fact, they make you want to call in sick from work and do it all day.