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None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it In other words --

None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it In other words --- developers can not live from Open Source alone. If all software was Open Source, there would likely be a lot fewer developers. And those that remain would be spending a lot more time and effort on survival and less time creating software. Open Source is inherently self limiting and unsustainable. It is a utopian concept that defies the basic economic reality we are all forced to contend with. And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation. It may be noble and good for somebody --- but ultimately not for himself or others like him.

ThrowawayR2 3y ago
> "And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation." The funniest part is that this outcome was obvious even in the 1990s. Evangelists were begging businesses to start using FOSS with slogans like "free as in beer and free as in speech" and hailing every corporate adoption as a victory. Meanwhile, business were belching contentedly and asking for another free beer while pointedly not giving a rat's ass about giving back or software freedom. I'm absolutely amazed that it took reality this long to catch up with FOSS.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  "Evangelists" = People promoting ideas not firmly rooted in reality. The software industry seems to harbor more than it's fair share --- crypto evangelists, open source evangelists. As folks from the ghetto used to say, "You gotta be rich to even think like that".