> I think strict open source is the best net good for the world we live in.
I agree BUT we've also seen through decades that this model is not working. While there are plenty of notable exceptions, it is difficult to make a living developing code transparently and making it available to the public. We've seen that large companies will build around these tools and pressure developers but not return compensation. We've seen that many of these projects become integral in our infrastructure (though often hidden several layers deep). We've seen that code quality is degraded as things are rushed and the reality is only a few people work on these projects. We've simply learned that we can't really rely on donations and corporations will find it difficult to justify funding even if they highly depend on it (even when it is in their best interest). Because charity is "charity".
The real best thing would be to ensure we have an economy where we compensate people for work that others find beneficial. As in, work is work. If you're developing tools that others are using and monetarily benefiting from, you should be compensated for that work. The world I want to see is where you can make a living as a full time open source dev. And not just for gigantic projects that are easily recognizable as critical, but anything that is critical. Anything that is useful.
I really want to live in that OSS world, but I think we should also have a serious conversation about the issues we face. That we need to question if the incentives align like we think they align. And consider time, as they might have in the past but no longer do. I'll ask a proxy question: Could you research and invent a (Star Trek style) replicator in this environment? Replace with some other device if you will, but such a thing like this would upend many businesses and likely the cannibalize itself. But such a tool would fundamentally change peoples lives for the better, making post scarcity not only possible, but trivial (there are other easier ways to get post scarcity). Fwiw, when I ask the economists[0] they give a two letter answer.
It is undeniable that the way we've done things has been successful. But past performance is no guarantee of future performance. The burden of advancement is that you have to get more nuanced over time. Essentially, we can do well with a low order approximation, but that only goes so far. As you progress, you need to account for more and more higher order terms. So the question is if we've advanced enough where these matter.
[0] I only explain what the device does. Having the ability to assemble things from the atomic level. Like a 3d printer but for atoms. They are smart enough to figure out the rest and I do confirm this. (My partner is an economist, so I pester them about things like this and they do others in reverse. It's good fun)