[chii]

> Instead of constantly singing the praises of open source

i would differ in my opinion, because it's not the 'singing praises' that's the root cause, but that the creator of said FOSS library expecting money in some form for having provided value up front (either contributions or donations etc).

That's an expectation that will never live up to reality.

> we have to find a sustainable way to reward the developers

this exists already - charging for the software you develop. Or, develop a business model around the software - aka, the software is free, but is just the bait for consulting business.

[scottrogowski]

My argument was not about one person being disappointed by expecting value and getting none - it was a broader point about the cultural encouragement - prevalent in engineering circles - of working for free.

To be specific - I think a good argument could be made for free development in the service of the underprivileged or other altruistic causes. However, a large portion or most development ends up benefitting large public corporations who make large profits. But because, as a culture, we encourage this work, we have basically set ourselves up to be exploited.

I recognize that this is an unpopular opinion and is difficult to make well, in a thread, without being downvoted. But I think there is always value at questioning our underlying cultural assumptions.