I agree with many of the sentiments here regarding software engineers particularly in regard to not effectively capturing the economic value of their own work a

I agree with many of the sentiments here regarding software engineers particularly in regard to not effectively capturing the economic value of their own work and that corporate interests which depend upon that value do not have their interests at heart. While open source and information sharing is one of the joys of working in this industry, I wonder if there is not a middle ground - confederations of engineers who charge for their products as independent entities as a means to reclaim that value for themselves, where the software they create is charged for, and shares of the profit are distributed on a contribution basis. Does this idea have merit, and is there interest in the community to write software to manage this confederation model?