> First of all, I believe that everything people do is according to some ethic, or set of criteria that motivates them, so there's no such thing as "unethical."

> First of all, I believe that everything people do is according to some ethic, or set of criteria that motivates them, so there's no such thing as "unethical." OK, that's one way to look at it. In that case I mean bad ethics... > Secondly, it's not charging money because of who they are, it's charging them because of what they have, which is money, which is a desire to have a bug fixed, and which is not expertise in doing so. That sounds reasonable and is similar to taxing the rich I suppose, but to me it's discrimination on WHO you are. > Thirdly, charging money like this is not antithetical to free software, and as a matter of fact is promoted by FSF. Here they are dispensing with your argument in the first sentence: That's their opinion, my opinion is that charging money for open source software (usage, support) usually results in bad incentives for the people controlling the software (more bugs = more money), which is bad for the consumers of the software. Allow people to contribute money/resources to the project if they want/need, is the best for everyone. > These companies don't pay taxes anyway. True, but a whole other issue.