My view on free software has changed over the course of my life. When I was in my 20s, my big concern was being able to do things like afford the mortgage on my

My view on free software has changed over the course of my life. When I was in my 20s, my big concern was being able to do things like afford the mortgage on my house and be able to maybe be able to afford to get married and have kids or at the least pay off my credit card debt. Time spent on free software was unlikely to help with that and I focused my development time on things that would bring in money. Now, in my 50s, I’m looking at retirement somewhere between 4 and 14 years away (although given the ongoing demolition of the United States, it might be more like 24 years away). I have little interest in building a side-business in software and, frankly, the flow of money in software is such that it wouldn’t be likely to be a viable concern anyway (to give just one example, in the 90s, I spent hundreds of dollars on compilers and database software that today are expected to be given away for free). As a consequence, the code that I write on the side I release with the least restrictive license possible because, frankly, I don’t really care if some corporation takes it and incorporates it into their product (in fact, I’d be kind of honored), and while it would be nice if they would kick me a few dollars, given my experience working as a corporate developer, my guess is that the few dollars that have come my way aren‘t coming out of corporate coffers but out of other developers’ wallets (for which I’m truly grateful, even if the actual dollar amounts likely don’t even cover my marginal expenses on the work).