An interesting article and some interesting responses - my view point is a little different. I'm an open source developer and have been since the 1990s - I work for an primarily open source company that provides (amongst other things) support contracts for open source software. So it can be argued that I make my living from my (and others) open source code - we mostly support companies and local government orgs using GeoServer (which I started and continue to develop) there is one proprietary competitor and one open source one - I like to think that GeoServer is the best of those, but I have no problem with people (and my employer) using MapServer (the other open source one), and people who go with those are happy to buy training and support because the alternative is to pay big bucks to ESRI (for in my opinion an inferior product).
However, not all is roses. This week end the LOG4J2 debacle hit and dozens of companies that use GeoServer suddenly appeared on the user list asking for a fix, these are people who had never contributed a dime to development or technical debt reduction or even new features - but suddenly they thought that the could expect me (and the rest of the devs) to work at the weekend to fix their problem!
Also, we still use GPL and LGPL on the grounds I am happy for people to use my code for free (and gratis) but if they modify it I want those improvements back for everyone rather than being hoarded by corporations trying to get rich on my labour.
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An interesting article and some interesting responses - my view point is a little different. I'm an open source developer and have been since the 1990s - I work for an primarily open source company that provides (amongst other things) support contracts for open source software. So it can be argued that I make my living from my (and others) open source code - we mostly support companies and local government orgs using GeoServer (which I started and continue to develop) there is one proprietary competitor and one open source one - I like to think that GeoServer is the best of those, but I have no problem with people (and my employer) using MapServer (the other open source one), and people who go with those are happy to buy training and support because the alternative is to pay big bucks to ESRI (for in my opinion an inferior product).
However, not all is roses. This week end the LOG4J2 debacle hit and dozens of companies that use GeoServer suddenly appeared on the user list asking for a fix, these are people who had never contributed a dime to development or technical debt reduction or even new features - but suddenly they thought that the could expect me (and the rest of the devs) to work at the weekend to fix their problem!
Also, we still use GPL and LGPL on the grounds I am happy for people to use my code for free (and gratis) but if they modify it I want those improvements back for everyone rather than being hoarded by corporations trying to get rich on my labour.