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Comment by arbitrage | Hacker News Reader

don't hate the player, hate the game.

this is the result of parasitic capitalism. i have no doubts that a dev who contributed so strongly to the opensource ecosystem for such a long time specifically wants to be in this situation. you wouldn't, i don't, they probably don't.

how else are we supposed to support our families and the community? there's no other source of revenue or support for a freelance programmer in caretaker mode for a mature and stable codebase. donations don't cut it, obviously.

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Open Source is not a business model, it is a development methodology — and that development methodology invites modifications by users under a license which upholds a set of conditions friendly to such modifications (spelled out in OSI's Open Source Definition).

Nobody has to write software that abuses its users with freakin' adware, proprietary or open source — and any creator who does so should be shunned. All the more so if they simultaneously abuse us and invite open source collaboration. This isn't starving people being driven to steal food.

Minor correction, I think you meant "I have doubts..." not "I have no doubts" (or you meant to double negative it later with "I have no doubt that... would not want...")

Are you seriously claiming that adware is the only way for a programmer to make money?

How would you do it? If nobody sells your software, and nobody is donating.

Get a different job? It may not have anything to do with FileZilla but no software developer with a successful open source project on their resume is forced to use adware. I'd understand if they were unable to work for whatever reason, but FileZilla development looks too active for that.

The issue with that is so much of the software industry is propped up by advertising. There is nowhere to go without being involved with ads, so why fight it?

So why hide the 'good' version?

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