So what if some people are free riders? What is that to you? Don't give up on a free society just because its costs are not equally distributed. By advocating g

So what if some people are free riders? What is that to you? Don't give up on a free society just because its costs are not equally distributed. By advocating government support, your saying that you want government to take by force from a bunch of people who couldn't care less about this software you like, so that you can continue using it for very little cost. You're exchanging everybody's freedom for your convenience. This is diametrically opposed to the attitude of the people who won freedom by giving up a lot of their own conveniences, like their property, the use of their limbs, and even their lives, so that their countrymen, most of whom they didn't know, could enjoy a little more freedom from taxation and other freedoms from government control. Sure this is idealism, but it's idealism that's worth at least arguing and voting for. If you personally don't have enough money to support all the causes you want to support, persuade others to join you, don't try to force them. Also, one reason for you having less money is that government has taken a lot of it to fund things that other voters have thought important enough to sacrifice your freedom for. Don't perpetuate the problem. Besides, if Rick really wanted to, he could charge for clojure as he explains in his appeal. He could in effect, force his users to make the choice to fund him or forego using his product. Right now, users are not forced to make this choice. But that choice is still available to them. If he could get government funding by simply being open source, he would in effect be taking away users' choice to fund him. Users would be forced to fund him whether or not they used his product.