If I read you correctly, you feel strictly that when someone contributes to open source their reward is that the product/feature works for them. There is no other consideration expected or needed. Is that correct?
Where we might differ is that I have observed that people contributing to open source feel a sense of pride or "ownership" over the work they have contributed.
Further, when someone who has not been part of the community, or contributed to it in any meaningful way, uses that work to make themselves and perhaps people that work for them wealthy, I have observed that the people who feel ownership feel a certain level of "unfairness" if you will.
In a strict libertarian point of view there was never any sort of economic contract to share any wealth created by a thing with the people who created and maintained that thing. As such the people who created it are without recourse and should be happy with the satisfaction they got from creating and maintaining it in the first place. And that was "their choice" that they made.
If that is what you're saying, I don't find the feelings these people have to be "perverse" (which by definition would make them abnormal). I am not arguing that the people start out with a motivation to "make money on their work", I was discussing the situation that the original author notes which is that sometimes a little gizmo you make is useful to a lot of people, and so it gets very widely utilized. The number of users creates a tremendous maintenance burden which is unfunded. That maintenance is, in my opinion, a value-add service which isn't being compensated (or is being compensated at a below poverty level according to our author).
If I read you correctly, you feel strictly that when someone contributes to open source their reward is that the product/feature works for them. There is no other consideration expected or needed. Is that correct?
Where we might differ is that I have observed that people contributing to open source feel a sense of pride or "ownership" over the work they have contributed.
Further, when someone who has not been part of the community, or contributed to it in any meaningful way, uses that work to make themselves and perhaps people that work for them wealthy, I have observed that the people who feel ownership feel a certain level of "unfairness" if you will.
In a strict libertarian point of view there was never any sort of economic contract to share any wealth created by a thing with the people who created and maintained that thing. As such the people who created it are without recourse and should be happy with the satisfaction they got from creating and maintaining it in the first place. And that was "their choice" that they made.
If that is what you're saying, I don't find the feelings these people have to be "perverse" (which by definition would make them abnormal). I am not arguing that the people start out with a motivation to "make money on their work", I was discussing the situation that the original author notes which is that sometimes a little gizmo you make is useful to a lot of people, and so it gets very widely utilized. The number of users creates a tremendous maintenance burden which is unfunded. That maintenance is, in my opinion, a value-add service which isn't being compensated (or is being compensated at a below poverty level according to our author).