[bb88]

    "It's even a bit ironic that I had been asked by
     several big-name companies when mold/macOS would
     become available, since they wanted to use it for their
     multi-billion-dollar businesses. But none of them gave
     me financial support."

He's giving it away for free and then expects multi-billion dollar companies to pay for it. When they don't because they have no legal requirement, he feels gypped.

This is kind of a dumb way to run your business.

[hobofan]

They are anticipating a version of the software they want to use to become available (which would save them money) without contributing in any way towards it.

This is kind of a dumb way to run your business.

[bccdee]

If he's going to keep doing the work, somebody has to pay for it. If a company wants him to keep doing the work, then they should provide funding in order to ensure that it happens. Otherwise, the company risks not actually getting the thing he's giving away for free, which is exactly what's happening.

It's the tragedy of the commons. Someone, anyone, has to pay for maintenance in the park. If nobody donates, then either the park shuts down or the park has to start charging visitors, and free access disappears.

[SergeAx]

They clearly have a need (macOS version), but won't pay literally the only person on the planet who will fulfull their need, why?

[bb88]

License? Only one guy to handle the support? Dev is an Unknown quantity? Bad economy? Cost he's asking is too high? Cheaper for companies to build it themselves?

I have a lot of questions about it too. But it's clear there's something wrong in his business model here.

[SergeAx]

AGPL is quite permissive license, they may use last AGPL licensed version for quite long time.

One guy handling support doesn't stop them from using the product on Linux, does it?

Dev is the best quality in the world, as I said. I mean, there's no one who could be better.

If it's cheaper to build by themselves, why they didn't to that already?

[1letterunixname]

AGPL is a restrictive license. You can't do a TiVO or a SaaS app with it.

[SergeAx]

One cannot provide AGPLed software to their customer without releasing the whole service code under the same license. Like, one cannot build cloud complier/linker to process one's customers' code. But one can link their compiled code using this linker and then sell that binaries or employ them in the SaaS all right.

[detaro]

How is either of those relevant for mold?

[account42]

Or perhaps building on free work without giving back is a dumb way to run a society.