[kalbfled]

The article seems laden with strawman arguments. A lot of FOSS software is exceptional, and it isn't made by Google, et. all. For examples: Ubuntu, Blender 3D, etc.

(I realize that Ubuntu includes binary blobs, and Blender gets money from Google sometimes via Summer of Code. I don't think those facts invalidate my point.)

[moron4hire]

Canonical is a $110 million company. They are stewards of Linux, but they profit from the free work that others are doing. I'm calling into question whether or not that's enough. In the case of Canonical, it's a tough call, though getting a little less tough the more ad-tech they push more ad-tech into it.

On the extreme end, the massive profitability of companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc., is a signal that they are taking more than they are giving.

And there is a long, long tail of other, popular projects that have had huge impact on the world, for which the developers have not received anything remotely approaching fair compensation. Look at the impact jQuery had on the world in the mid 2000's. Looking at Wikipedia just now, it says that it's in use on 73% of the 10 million most popular websites. Surely, somewhere, somebody could have coughed up a few dollars.