> Open source maintainer is a stressful, thankless job which pays peanuts compared to what you could get for the skills and time Precisely why Open Source must

> Open source maintainer is a stressful, thankless job which pays peanuts compared to what you could get for the skills and time Precisely why Open Source must fund itself with things like freemium. Otherwise its impossible to justify the effort it requires in the long run. Like how the freemium format has been very successful in the WordPress ecosystem and many individual devs have made a very good living by developing their themes/plugins/services and creating sustainable communities around their software - independently without any kind of VC money. It is a good pattern that keeps the control of projects in the community's hands.