I in general agree to @wtfrank's idea. There needs to be a way to limit the proliferation of open source codebases among newbie zones. Hell, check the respawn zones on shard3, most of them are full of Overmind bots.
@Smokeman that's what the newbie zones are for. Setting up entire shard like that would be inefficient, and result in most newbies not learning anything and/or just leaving their code vegetate on the shard. Timed safe area for initial development is a much better incentive to "get sh!t going". And I'm yet to see a person who'd go out of their way to wipe all the rookies from a rookie area once it despawns. Most of this community are incredibly welcoming to new players, at least to the ones who are actually developing their own code.
And finally, getting roflstomped early in the game can also act as a great motivator. Need to exact revenge on someone can really get you going.
Speaking of motivation, all those overmind bots in my vicinity on shard3 have been a good motivator for me to get going with stuff too. I've been using them as punching bags to test/develop battle code. But I am not OK with them spawning in a rookie zone and driving the real rookies away from the game.