Item — HN Reader

This argument always bothered me. For me, the ethos of open source and free software is altruism.

The whole point is that the developers make the software to help users. There's nothing gained by developers thought-endingly stating that the users aren't entitled to anything.

On the other hand though, it's not like users are saints either (for example, vanishingly few donate to the developers of the software they use) so it's a bit of a race to the bottom overall and I understand such sentiment.

2 comments

Maybe I'm cynical, but after 30 years in the open-source community, I think the true ethos of open-source is self-interest, and the disregard open-source maintainers feel for their users reflects this.

The point of free software is to allow users to have control over the software they use. There's no inherent connection to altruism, though that is part of why I open source the code that I can.

Plenty of individuals and companies release open source software that requires payment.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Anyway, I feel this is all tangential. My issue was mostly that the parent comment suggested that open source devs be billed for changing the software they create.