alt Hacker Newsthose who pay others to develop open source (or free software) would be donating to charity. so it is still volunteering, just indirectly.
also the term "gemeinnützig" is about the end result, not how it is produced. FOSS is gemeinnützig, even if the producers are paid.
> FOSS is gemeinnützig, even if the producers are paid.
That's exactly what I question. Let's say I develop an open source firmware specific to hardware I produce. It's not compatible with anything else, it's my proprietary hardware. The hardware is a tamagotchi (you wouldn't consider a tamagotchi "gemeinnützig", would you?). I use tivoisation, such that nobody can flash a different firmware than the one I write. Still the source code of that firmware is open source.
Is that gemeinnützig?