[kerkeslager]

> I don't believe we've been served well by defining the term "Open Source" to also necessarily mean "Free".

I don't think we've done that. On the contrary, Stallman and many other free software advocates specifically distinguish between open source software and free software.

To add to the confusion, I think you're talking about free as in beer (gratis) rather than free as in freedom (libre). The latter is what most free software advocates are talking about.

I would argue that all of the problems you mention are caused by open source software that is not free (libre) even if it is free (gratis).

[danenania]

While this may be technically true, in practice these two types of "freedom" are almost always conflated. Anyone who posts something that is "libre" but not "gratis" will be met with lots of "why isn't it FOSS?" and "here's a FOSS alternative" comments. This is the (imo) self-defeating attitude I'm referring to.

[kerkeslager]

Well, if something is libre it's hard for it not to also be gratis, because someone can just take your code and run it elsewhere. So there's understandable skepticism when something is libre but not gratis, because the suspicion is that the creator will retract the libre-ness of their code.

I see the trend you're talking about, but I also see an inverse trend: people think that if software isn't funded it won't happen. Particularly on Hacker News: there's a segment of Hacker News who either can't comprehend or refuse to acknowledge that there might exist motivations besides money. I'm not accusing you of this, at least not to that extreme, but I'm saying that some people have that attitude, and it's certainly informing what you're saying to some extent.

My perspective as someone who has written some open source software, is that I did it for fun, to solve my own problems, or out of some idealistic drive to push humanity forward. Money was a foregone conclusion, but I wrote the software anyway. I might feel differently if I had written anything significant enough that it had a wide user base of profitable companies, but it's my impression that people don't write software and make it free because they want money.

I'm not saying we shouldn't support our free software contributors. We should, it's a nice thing to do. All I'm saying is that fear about the incentive structure of open source software isn't really warranted. Free (libre) and free (gratis) software will continue to be built regardless of whether they are ever funded, by people who are well-aware that they may never receive any money for it.