[nchmy]

People pay for things all the time, why not (almost surely unnecessary) code? Why do you all feel entitled to free access to thousands of hours of very highly skilled devs' efforts (most of which they actually are giving away for free)?

Moreover, it is quite common for there to be pro versions of libraries these days - tailwind, all sorts of component libraries, etc..

> Plenty of other open source projects make money without attracting this kind of negative feedback

We dont seem to be living in the same reality. In mine, maintaining open source projects is a nearly-completely thankless, profit-less endeavour. It is a rare exception that someone can earn a living from it. And datastar's devs have zero expectation that they'll do so, even with this model - hence it is registered as a 501c3, and the funds will cover things like travelling to conferences to talk about it.

[xdfgh1112]

I think the pro version and charging stuff is totally fine. It's the lack of transparency that bothers people. I shouldn't have to figure out their profit model from HN comments. If you want to be paid for your work, charge for the whole library or make the free/pro distinction very clear to people. Don't try to hook them in with a free offering while locking features behind a paywall that they discover later.

Or if you want to be altruistic (as you keep referring to nonprofit) make it free and solicit donations/patreon.

The current approach is certainly a new one and I am interested to see if it pays off.

[nchmy]

99% is already free. That seems pretty altruistic to me.

And they don't really care if it "pays off" - it's not meant to