[jacquesm]

There is a model that deals with this kind of problem, it's called the ransom model (not the most ideal name but it gets the point across nicely).

It was used successfully on blender, the basic idea is you build what you have to build closed source, the risk is yours. And then when you've built up a following you set your ransom price, the price that has to be met for you to open up the source.

If the product is any good I doubt it would be hard for the author to get his minimum wage and the world would be a better place.

Free software, so many choices :)

[mixmax]

That's actually a really interesting model. Here's the Wikipedia entry on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system (redirect from ransom model)

It's not free as in beer though.