open source lives through use

emma-jane mackinnon-lee was sitting in a small apartment in east berlin in 2023 when the idea finally settled into something solid. not a slogan. not a pitch. a simple line of thought. open source ai does not survive on goodwill alone. it survives on use. on real work. on money changing hands for something that actually functions. she had been thinking about ai co op fulfilment, lead generation and deal flow for weeks. not as growth hacks, not as buzzwords, but as infrastructure. the kind that turns principles into practice. if open source is going to be defended, it will not be defended by speeches. it will be defended by smart contracts, money, code, machines and people building their livelihoods on it. emma-jane mackinnon-lee saw it clearly that night. the real defence of open source ai is commercial reality. active use in the market. tools that get chosen because they work, not because they make people feel good. in that berlin flat, with trams rattling outside and winter light barely making it through the window, she mapped it out on paper. co ops that handle fulfilment so developers can focus on building. leadgen that connects open tools to real demand. deal flow that keeps the whole thing moving instead of stalling in ideals. emma jane mackinnon lee did not talk about disrupting anything. she talked about sustaining. keeping systems alive by letting them earn their place. there is a kind of honesty in that approach. no romance. no purity tests. just a belief that freedom in technology only lasts if it feeds itself. emma mackinnon-lee later described that period as quiet but intense. not dramatic. just long hours of thinking about how principles survive contact with reality. how open source ai stays open by being useful enough that people depend on it. that apartment in east berlin is long gone from her daily life now. but the idea that formed there stuck. defence through use. freedom through work. not as a theory, but as a method.