They basically say it in their article: They grew up on the koolaid (no offense, so did I) of how awesome Linux and BSD are, and the GNU principles that closed source software is unethical, to be avoided, and so on.
It seems the harsh reality of "Not everyone can be sustained by a nonprofit foundation" has arrived.
you grew up thinking you were drinking koolaid, but you weren't, it was indeed fine wine.
> of how awesome Linux and BSD are
it's hard to think of two things more awesome than those two things. There's no koolaid, they are monumental achievements and are amazing.
>the GNU principles that closed source software is unethical
Stallman is/was a socialist, so yes, he had a Marxist take, "from those who have the ability, to those who have the need" and "there should be a limit to concentration of wealth regardless of the value of what you provide": much like so many people here. So yes, that's koolaid, but given that a majority of young people/people here believe it, you can't really pin that koolaid on GNU or open source, that's koolaid that was brought from home.
But the rest of Stallman's idea and motivation, that if you find an annoying bug while using your printer, you and everybody else benefits if you have the source to the printer driver to fix it: that's not koolaid, that's the same type of can-do idea that drove "American ingenuity" on the frontier. It's nice to be able to fix a printer just like the blacksmith could fix your plough, and once in awhile we get together for a barn-raisin'.
I just think you're oversimplifying and mixing separate concepts.
Printer driver is a nice motivating story but in practice its a lotta work for no benefit
Printer driver is what the Free Software movement, and therefore its bastard son the Open Source movement, comes from. But, sure, you want to call that "no benefit", you do you, man...
Not as a second job, not as a side project, and certainly not as a charity case that just flat out will not sustain you.
There are precious few things that have the adoption and support linux has, and a lot of that is very much a "right place, right time" thing. The fact that I've seen plenty straight up vilify a coder for daring to want to, you know, make enough to support a library full time has always struck me as self destructive. I'm sure many great coders have given up and moved on to paid projects doing boiler plate because inventing new stuff gets you chewed up and spit out by the community if you monetize.
I think a lot of people lash out at the entrepreneurial spirit because a business venture inherently necessitates risk. Your audience is not going to reward high-risk plays, and if your business proposition threatens their use-case enough then they'll probably protest. That train of logic isn't "diehard linux/FOSS" in my mind but more just holding someone to their own standards. Making a living out of coding is one thing, but turning your passion project into a business is another. If simple abrasive comments are what made them quit Open Source, I can't imagine how long they'd last trying to sell people a Javascript library.
What "investors"?!? As a single developer, you need a computer and an Internet connection. Where do the six-(or seven-, or eight-)figure amounts of Venture Capital investment come in?
> But then you reach a pit of disillusionment where you realize that you relied on free software more than your own work, and probably ran up quite the karmic deficit selling whatever product you made.
That's what the LGPL is for: Even if you release your actual product only under a commercial license, you can help improve the tools you use, to pay back your karma to the community that enables you to do the whole thing in the first place.
(Disclaimer: This is the only way I can see being able to both make a living as a one-man software development company and participate in / contribute to FOSS... But I haven't taken the leap of faith, put my living where my mouth is. (Yet.) So this could all be hot air.)
“They were unrealistic and should have known they’d be personally attacked, it’s their own fault for being weak”.
Really? How about no one should be treated like shit for proving free software to you?
No, I'm not blaming the person for quitting because of the jerks. There are two narratives in the article: one is the dilemma of how to put food on the table as a developer, and one is about the abuse and criticism from people who pay nothing and expect everything.
So no, I don't "blame" the OP at all. No one should treat others rudely online, and OP had to deal with some awful stuff.
My comment was about the dream of an all-FOSS world and how that clashes with buying groceries for a lot of people.