It’s up to the authors how they want to license it.
Plus or minus some amount of piracy, sure
Comment on Open Source Developers Are Exhausted, Unpaid, and Ready to Walk Away
elbarto777@lemmy.world 5 weeks agoI’m sorry, but I can’t agree with this. If the software is free, then it’s free. It’s up to the authors how they want to license it.
Personally, I write code and publish it in the hopes that it will help someone. If someone comes in and says “there’s this bug, fix it!” I will only do so if it will benefit me, or if I feel like it.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
elbarto777@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Oh for sure!
rockstar1215@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The article and discussion here is about open source software which is not free software. Thats where the problem lies it is assumed that open source software has be free.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
But the article is not talking about this scenario. They’re specifically talking about open source software that’s also free software:
So it’s perfectly fine for some users to expect the software to be free.
The real problem is that some project owners have a sense of duty to maintain their creations no matter what, leading to burnout, which is the point of the article. The article also details ways to fix it. Some of those involve the users being proactive (e.g. taking the initiative to donate consistently), but ultimately it’s up to the owner to take some action. Like I mentioned, if I publish some code for free, I don’t mind my users to expect that my software will always be free. But if they think I’m going to lose sleep trying to meet their demands without compensation, welp, they are dreaming.