I completely don't understand what you said about burden on developers to set up some system.
> "Can you be doing whatever you feel like, and one or more companies are making millions in revenue based on products made possible by what you are working on, and expect to have a decent living?"
Still no.
There are few good reasons to contribute to open source, and they are nothing about profits other users make, because the process and the product are rewarding to the contributor.
Now there are some bad reasons to contribute to open source, where the motivation is perverse, the situation looks distastrous, and only these cases would take advantage from any such policing, subsidizing, taxing, wealth redistribution.
Does that person do the work to use the product themselves? Then such external factors don't matter, the person extracts the value they intended to have.
Does that person do the work to meet interesting challenges, mess with smart people, and have fun? Obviously it's nothing about getting money from other users.
Does that person do the work to promote themselves in careers? Other users matter only as big or numerous names, not as revenue.
Does that person do the work with the only outcome being the profit for companies which the person expects to pay back, while putting on work under the license which does not require users to pay at all?
Or, in addition to that, they bring a FOSS product to the market, profit from providing value-add services to that, but get broke because someone else starts to provide similar value-add services with their product, all being legal?
Your thoughts are completely about these people, and these people have really perverse motives from the outset.
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).
> "Can you be doing whatever you feel like, and one or more companies are making millions in revenue based on products made possible by what you are working on, and expect to have a decent living?"
Still no.
There are few good reasons to contribute to open source, and they are nothing about profits other users make, because the process and the product are rewarding to the contributor.
Now there are some bad reasons to contribute to open source, where the motivation is perverse, the situation looks distastrous, and only these cases would take advantage from any such policing, subsidizing, taxing, wealth redistribution.
Does that person do the work to use the product themselves? Then such external factors don't matter, the person extracts the value they intended to have.
Does that person do the work to meet interesting challenges, mess with smart people, and have fun? Obviously it's nothing about getting money from other users.
Does that person do the work to promote themselves in careers? Other users matter only as big or numerous names, not as revenue.
Does that person do the work with the only outcome being the profit for companies which the person expects to pay back, while putting on work under the license which does not require users to pay at all?
Or, in addition to that, they bring a FOSS product to the market, profit from providing value-add services to that, but get broke because someone else starts to provide similar value-add services with their product, all being legal?
Your thoughts are completely about these people, and these people have really perverse motives from the outset.