alt Hacker NewsSo you think that engineers that maintain and write the FOSS that runs most of the world IT infrastructure ( Linux, Curl, GIT etc. ) do it for the returns ?
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jack_pp • today at 12:25 PM
No, that's exactly parent's point. The premise of the title can be read as "just create value, don't worry about monetizing, things will work out (financially)". Which is invalidated by FOSS
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pezgrande • today at 12:39 PM
aren't most of them being payed by big corps? Redhat, Google, Microsoft... you name it.
They don't, and as a result most don't get much if any.
For them to survive, they have to have got returns from somewhere - maybe welfare, inheritance, a day job. Someone has to have worried about the returns so they can be free from thinking about it.
And if you don't worry about returns, you will let someone extract it ruthlessly from you, that you contribute millions of value to a company that gives you nothing back. This may be fine to you at some level, but many of the people who you allow to exploit you use the resources they gain as leverage to further their selfish ends, like a certain richest man in the world who helped a certain politician buy an election at the most powerful country in the world.