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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how we resolve this. Some things are excellent because open source allows an individual to make what they want without answering to a boss or whatever and then if it gets popular, it comes with responsibilities but probably little or no pay.

As someone who did a lot of volunteer work, these issues resonate with me -- painfully so.

That's probably my primary motive for reading such articles when I'm not really a programmer.

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What's to resolve? You either do something for the love of it or you don't. There's nothing to solve, it is what it is. If you want to get paid for writing your software get a job, start a company. OSS is neither of those things.

I'm far from the only person who feels people should get paid for their work if they add value to the lives of others or this article wouldn't exist.

Some people know how to add value and don't know how to turn that into an income and if they desperately need income and everybody wants their work but nobody pays them, it's extremely infuriating and crazy making.

Then they should ask for it.

"I give my software away for free and no one pays me for my work."

Your argument makes no sense.

Some of them do ask for it. And it does little or nothing.

I'm a writer and a blogger. Newspapers are dying. If you put ads on your site, people use ad blockers. People find ways around pay walls. Etc.

Sometimes you can't somehow magically control the fact that people won't pay you.

Then you work on something else that the world wants to pay for or you continue doing something you love and no one wants. The world doesn't owe you anything.

The world might not owe anyone anything but the world is worse of if people only do whatever is the most profitable for them.

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