alt Hacker NewsIsn't FOSS about giving something cool to the community, to your fellow developers? If it's money you're after, why starting a FOSS project? How is it any different from bait-and-switch or rug pulls corporate is being shamed for?
I'm not angry with the authors, they have all the rights to go commercial if this is what they want. But I can't help but feel sad about it.
Replies
pjmlp • 04/03/2025
Not at all, FOSS licenses don't mean it is free of charge.
In fact, in the early days folks would get money out of distributions like Walnut Creek CDs.
Everyone talks about morality, what about the morality of feeling good getting that check at the end of the month in consulting services, without giving a dime to upstream?
> How is it any different from bait-and-switch or rug pulls corporate is being shamed for?
Hard agree. If you want to turn a profit from your project, make it commercial from the beginning. I have no problems with commercial tools or products, but I do have a problem with starting something as open source, gaining adoption, then changing the license later on.
It's the same BS behavior from SaaS we love to call out, when companies make a generous free tier, get users locked in, then pull the rug.
Should the community help out and contribute back to FOSS projects they use? Absolutely, but at the same time, they are not obligated to either and if a dev has a problem with that, then don't release it as FOSS.
I've published a few small tools for sysadmins, and I never expected any kind of contribution back whether monetary or otherwise, and that's OK. I wrote them for myself, and will maintain them for myself as long as they are useful to me. Others are free to use them and I don't expect anything in return.