Copyleft licenses are an improvement. They do not universally force payment in every case where a proprietary license could, but on the other hand, would MongoDB have become as popular in the first place if it wasn't FOSS?
(And I object to the concept that hosting FOSS as a service is "freeloading". FOSS has always and only ever asked for giving back code, not money. Freeloading would be refusing to give back code, and companies regularly do fail on that front as well.)
> If Free Software can't feed its developers, they will look for food elsewhere.
FOSS can feed developers quite well. Some developers are deciding they'd prefer to sell proprietary software because they resent other companies benefiting from their work, and they're welcome to do that. What's not welcome is trying to claim the popularity benefits of FOSS without actually being FOSS; it is a good thing on balance that such efforts have met with chilly receptions.
There are many, many conversations going on about additional ways to fund FOSS development. The ones that have a hope of succeeding aren't the ones that start by abandoning FOSS.
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject - "Computer users should be free to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, because helping other people is the basis of society."
] You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way.
I agree entirely, and I do think it's important to only be required to give source to those you give binaries to. I just didn't want to nitpick that particular distinction here.
> FOSS has always and only ever asked for giving back code, not money.
Which is one of the reasons of disillusionment from them. On one hand, FOSS licenses only benefits developers who can fix the software to their liking – a non-developer user would likely just pay for it to make sure that they can get reliable, professional support. On the other hand, it assumes that the labour of developers is worthless (or at the very least, it's value is completely dissociated from its real-world impact).
> There are many, many conversations going on about additional ways to fund FOSS development.
Are any of them non-reliant on either the altruism of their users (donations, patronage, etc.), or selling value-added services that can easily be undercut by a party with deeper pockets (e.g., MongoDB vs AWS)?
Does that happen though? log4j developers were working overtime to fix the security bug [1], while corporation expected them to release the fix ASAP for free. Who was paying?
(And I object to the concept that hosting FOSS as a service is "freeloading". FOSS has always and only ever asked for giving back code, not money. Freeloading would be refusing to give back code, and companies regularly do fail on that front as well.)
> If Free Software can't feed its developers, they will look for food elsewhere.
FOSS can feed developers quite well. Some developers are deciding they'd prefer to sell proprietary software because they resent other companies benefiting from their work, and they're welcome to do that. What's not welcome is trying to claim the popularity benefits of FOSS without actually being FOSS; it is a good thing on balance that such efforts have met with chilly receptions.
There are many, many conversations going on about additional ways to fund FOSS development. The ones that have a hope of succeeding aren't the ones that start by abandoning FOSS.