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I wonder if you'd also be arguing for libre software to reject available funding? What's the difference?

The Ruby on Rails foundation brings in a million per year: https://rubyonrails.org/foundation

The Linux foundation is funded at around $250m / year from a quick Google search

Not at all. As a KDE Plasma user, I love and donate to open source.

I'm arguing that the current climate of "vibe code a startup a day" is unsustainable, terrible, and should NOT be the thing people strive for. Instead of appeasing VC firms, that energy can be better spent on passion projects or contributing to other open-source projects like KDE / Linux / GrapheneOS / etc..

They're different goals though. Someone selling software is doing it to put a roof over their heads and money in their retirement accounts. If you straight up replace that with working on passion projects and giving them away you get.. homeless people.

I'm not sure the starving artist is an ideal to strive for, either. Surely there's a middle ground?

Obsidian's model seems fair: https://obsidian.md/pricing

JetBrains' lifetime "subscription" which gets locked at the version you paid for seems fair to me

I don't see why you can't work on something you're passionate about and make money from it. For those of us not retired, the money is essential to make it sustainable.

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