alt Hacker NewsThere really is no prize for being technically correct on this one.
Someone built this and is letting you have it. For free. There is no legal obligation or law of the universe here, sure, but if you're in the top 1% of benefactors of this pro bono work, you have the opportunity to do some good and make sure that others, like you, get the chance to benefit from this free work in the future.
There is a pretty straightforward argument to be made that this falls under the "with great power comes great opportunity" umbrella of moral reasoning, since this work empowered CA to create the game that earned him a lot of money.
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>but if you're in the top 1% of benefactors of this pro bono work, you have the opportunity to do some good and make sure that others
Including, of course, oneself. Keeping the project you depend on running is good business.
> Someone built this and is letting you have it. For free.
That's the point of a FOSS license. You give the power back to the end users. This was purposefully chosen by the Monogame project.
There is no moral obligation, either - that’s my point. They chose to give it away for free. It’s the author’s explicit decision that there is no obligation placed on recipients.
Giving a fake gift that comes with unspoken strings attached (and “keeping score” in your head) is the passive-aggressive, immoral act. If reciprocity is expected, it is definitionally not a gift.
Releasing software under a free software license is a choice to give a gift to the world. If the author wanted moral obligation strings attached, the license would say that.
If every gift one gives out comes with a moral obligation, it'd be pretty selfish to give gifts.