[luckylion]

For individuals, that's true: free always wins. It's different for corporations, they'll often pay for more commercial licensing or support. Unlike individuals, they're also often happy to pay because they'll spend money either way: buying vs paying someone to build/figure out.

And I don't see that as an oxymoron. If you believe that something is worthy of sinking your time into it, and you believe that it should be open source, and you're not filthy rich and can afford to do it as a charity, you'll need to get paid somehow. And for that, you need marketing.

And more generally, I'd love it if more open source developers adopted a business-approach to onboarding. "Here's what our product does, here are some use-cases it solves, here's how to get started quickly, and there is the documentation with plenty of working real-world examples" is just so much better than "here's some code that might or might not be what you're looking for, works for me, whatever".

[boomahora]

100% right for corporations. When speaking with some security professionals, one aspect they look for in open-source projects is whether it has a monetization plan behind it. This is to give some assurance that there is longevity to the project and that it won't be forgotten about in the future.