Post #2397430

2026-02-01 00:54 UTC

@egoldblatt@gardenstate.social @pafurijaz@mastodon.social That's probably true. But the idea that a community can only exist as long as huge numbers of people are providing their labor for free is a huge problem. I think people need to get used to the idea of paying for open source software, we pay for everything else that we find useful and if Linux is worthwhile we should be willing to pay for this as well.

Replies (2)

@crocodisle@woof.tech 2026-02-01 03:58

@rastilin@aus.social @egoldblatt@gardenstate.social @pafurijaz@mastodon.social I think we should absolutely encourage monetary contributions to open source, but I think how we communicate about it is important. No one should be going into free software projects expecting to get paid for it, and the fact that people do get paid for it is the exception and not the rule. Likewise, if there's an expectation for the users to pay for software, and the software is being distributed for free, I'd argue the onus isn't on the users, but on the authors/distributors to monetize it correctly. Imo FOSS as a business model isn't in the spirit of FOSS (vscodium, for example). Neither does software we've paid for guarantee any special privileges or increased trust in the authors. It just means we've paid for it.

Open ##2397431
@egoldblatt@gardenstate.social 2026-02-01 04:32

@rastilin@aus.social @pafurijaz@mastodon.social I don't see a likelihood of users or corporations being willing to pay for open source. If payment changes hands, that's a contract. And I'm sure that everyone wants a contract that protects them from anything that might go wrong.

Open ##2397436