You've already been compensated with massive amounts of free, open source technology that you use every day, probably every time you interact with your computer. Now you have an opportunity to do a little work for it.
EDIT: harlanji's response, below, is the much better one IMHO. I let the parent frame it as a question of compensation. As harlanji points out, that was the wrong question.
Nobody said anything about "owing." Simply that we've been "compensated" via tremendous value hence as programmers there's no need to feel exploited for providing "free" labor.
Most of them didn't start as such, and only got funding after years, sometime decades, of free work.
And even then, half of the work is still done for free.
And that's only for the most famous one. E.G: the huge majority of free libs in JS or Python are purely pro bono.
And even after the money arrived, some very popular software have very little money compared to the produced work: eg: the PSF.
All in all, my entire computer contains millions of euros of software I didn't pay.
It's sad enough you don't want to participate, but it's a choice we must respect. But don't be discouraging other people actually giving something, it's insulting.
If you don't like it, then ignore it. Your cynism brings literally nothing to the table.
As a student, and someone who wants to become a strong engineer over the next ten years... this kind of opportunity is fantastic. You can see it as "uncompensated labor", I see it as a way to learn, get my code "out there", and get better at my trade.
Im contribootin, but when you think that forces me to abandon all my opinions and cheerfull throw flower petals on every propaganda waggon rollin through town- nope.
Open Source never really cared so much about its contribooters as they cared about open source.
If stallmann would start worrying about its contribooters beeing able to live decent lifes with familys, without having a boss breathing down there neck- maybee then.
But it guess that is just not that sort of freedom thats high on the priortiy list.
Open Source as a lifestyle is currently limited to students and beginners.
Most people in free software don't regard compensation as their primary motivator to work. Personally, I'd hate to spend so many hours of a finite lifetime on things I don't care about beyond a paycheck. As soon as you have enough money for your purposes, it's incredibly freeing to do things that satisfy your actual motivations.
When I first used firefox I was just some kid in high school. Me and many of my peers used firefox for years free of charge. We shared it with out parents and grandparents.
I would consider this as contribution to this wider community beyond just Mozilla's bottom line.
