[coldtea]

>Once you have a product, free or not, which is used and relied upon by a large group of people, you do owe them something.

No, you really don't. The fact is: they owe you something, but it's OK, since you give it away for free.

>If you don't want that responsibility then don't release your code or get out when things become serious.

Or else?

>That's not a reasonable mentality to have if you want adoption.

What if you DON'T want adoption? Or you want just the smart kids that can contribute back to adopt your code?

[EpicEng]

And philosophical OSS people wonder why so many people chose closed alternatives. If you don't want adoption, fine, but don't pretend like that's true for every OSS project out there. I have no problem with that mentality until it comes into stark contrast with the goals of those pushing OSS (see: EFF.) You're not going to be taken seriously by people if you don't support the code you put out there.

>Or else?

Or else people just don't use your software and don't buy into your ideology. If you don't care, fine, but obviously many OSS proponents do.

[coldtea]

>. I have no problem with that mentality until it comes into stark contrast with the goals of those pushing OSS (see: EFF.)

Actually EFF has little to do with OSS.

Perhaps you meant FSF. In any case, most OSS software that isn't GNU has very little if anything to do with FSF. Some OSS authors, especially those MIT-licence inclined, even hate its guts.

[EpicEng]

...Yes, FSF. I think I made that typo twice today. I know that not all OSS proponents agree on everything, but I do think that they all agree on the overall benefits of OSS and would like more people to stick with OSS. That's what I'm talking about here.