# Research Sharing --- ## On sharing ideas and knowledge On the question of sharing, I agree with Jefferson’s view that: > Ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, \[…\] like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.[^1] However, I also agree with Peter Drucker that: > The basic economic resource — the means of production — is no longer capital, nor natural resources, nor labor. It is and will be knowledge.[^2] The two perspectives may seem in tension — shouldn’t you carefully steward whatever you have that’s “the basic economic resource,” for your own economic safety? But it’s an illusory tension, based on the false premise that ideas and knowledge can be owned, controlled, and depleted, like oil or land. They can’t: - They gain value through use, application, and recombination. - In the process, their value isn’t extracted, it’s amplified. - We continually generate new ideas and new knowledge. ## My stance That’s why **I make my research freely available** with the maximum openness available within the Creative Commons licensing framework — please **see my plain-language summary: [[Welcome/Sharing|Sharing]]**. [^1]: Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson, 13 August 1813, in *[The Writings of Thomas Jefferson](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1726460)*, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh. (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1905). See also this fragment in *[The Founders’ Constitution](https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html)*, University of Chicago Press. [^2]: Peter F. Drucker, *[Post-Capitalist Society](https://search.worldcat.org/title/26589967)* (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993).