Most people don't believe in idealism but the open source movement is living proof of it. This is a society that worships 'wealth creators' and is skeptical of

Most people don't believe in idealism but the open source movement is living proof of it. This is a society that worships 'wealth creators' and is skeptical of altruism and has no way to understand or value their work. Stallman, Torvalds and thousands of others have undeniably added immeasurable value to society and have directly and indirectly enabled thousands of startups and tons of jobs. Yet they are not thought of as 'wealth creators' and 'job creators' and its those who use their work for profit who get these self-congratulatory titles. Stallman was particularly prescient but it does not look like the values that powered the generation that created and grew the open source movement will persist. Those who work for and defend the surveillance economy can hardly claim them. The communities that were more open source focused have more of less died and a lot of that tech traffic spills here but HN itself is not focused on open source but how best to use it for profit - not that that is a bad thing. But now its a side effect of efforts to make money.