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how should maintainer make money?
Personally I'd be fine with a commercial license with source available here... the issue isn't the price, it's the fact that you're asked to MITM every network connection you make under the control of a binary blob.

I think it's fair to ask that a developer choosing to build a thing that requires that kind of access should be expected to err on the side of transparency.

You mean “how can I donate?”

https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch?tab=readme-ov-file#...

So... what if the maker can't make it on donations only?
Then development will stop and users don't have the software anymore.

If users consider this software important they should donate so they can keep using it.

>and users don't have the software anymore.

Not exactly. Users still have the software. They don't have updates.

See the issue here? Even if someone just fixes some bugs and security fixes - this alone can be time consuming. At the same time many users can just accept the version without those pathes and don't donate.

So you have a choice - continue to maintain the software for less money or to drop it, leaving donating users with no support.

How exactly is this different from payed software?
There is a ton of software that lives on because it matters to the developer(s). I know "but mah monetization" is huge on this forum but it's not an all encompassing rule and it does not completely reflect the existing reality.
Strong disagree on this stance. You want to use the software? Cool, pay for it. Need access to source? It's on github, go nuts. Want to change it? Sure, feel free, but whoever uses it should pay the original developer. You can even charge extra for your modifications. Don't like the terms? Too bad - feel free to rewrite from scratch.

FOSS simply isn't sustainable if you want to make a living out of it. It protects a lot of user freedoms - even those that don't actually matter to users that much - at the expense of the rights of developers. There are a lot of ways that developers could be paid and users would still be protected (have access to source and the right to modify). The only ones benefitting from the current situation are BigTech.

/rant

The developer isn’t accepting a job offer to develop it, they’re accepting donations. That’s literally how the software devs for Opensnitch choose to receive payment.
I've happily been a paid user on macOS for years, I would guess the number of paid users there was able to fund the Linux development.
open source / free software is not necessarily free as in free beer. You can sell GPL software.
Hunt, gather.
There was also toolmaker to support the hunter and gatherer… so… back to square one.
Working a job?