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In our economic system, those who produce the most value to other people are able to eek out profits while still helping the purchaser. That incentivizes people to produce value and focus on things that help people the most. Linus undoubtedly has produced incredible value and efficiency gains for the world, and those who want to see such efficiency gains continue want people like him to be rewarded for their behavior.

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It's not enough to produce something objectively good? If Linux was pay-for-source or non-GPL, it would be just another crappy UNIX clone with no outstanding features. It never would have been picked up by tinkerers and academia, let alone corporations.

> It's not enough to produce something objectively good?

Sure, as a hobby. But as a full time job orchestrating such a massive project while being a public figure? That's a bigger ask that is better justified when rewarded though other means too.

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