I think this approach is both pragmatic and reasonable. You felt that open-sourcing the code has certain amount of value and the act of open-sourcing has a cert

I think this approach is both pragmatic and reasonable. You felt that open-sourcing the code has certain amount of value and the act of open-sourcing has a certain cost. If someone wanted that, they should have funded the crowdsourcing campaign. It didn't work out because it seems everyone asking wanted it for free. That's their problem. You did everything right.