In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from anyone.
Your feelings about what constitutes "the right thing to do" are apparently different from those of the authors. You believe you know better than they themselves do how they should be treated.
Your line of reasoning seems to be along the lines of "anything not forbidden is compulsory" which is not a good place. Having the choice to donate but not being required to is good.
And yes, I think that if OpenAI is choosing to include an entire copy of LibreOffice in their product, it is definitely the right thing to do to sling them a donation. Note that the moral thing to do is not always the required thing to do, or even the legal thing to do.
People will absolutely pay for things voluntarily if you ask them, without forcing them to.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2018/nov/12/katharine...
In a nutshell - voluntary funding by readership. No paywall. You can read as many stories as you like for free, and donate if you want. It works.
The question at hand is of the form: Is it right to do X (to donate, in this case)? Your reply amounts to: yes, because X is the right thing to do. This merely restates the query as its own conclusion.
"Donations" are - by definition - entirely voluntary.
If people want to donate, that's fine. If they don't want to donate -- also fine. That's what "donation" means.
Therefore anyone's decision not to donate is entirely consistent with the author's own expressed preferences.
Whether an actor happens to be large and rich (OpenAI) is irrelevant. The license -- the author's formally expressed preferences -- does not say anything about "free unless you are rich." They could certainly have done so if they had wanted to. They didn't. You are taking it upon yourself to claim that you know what's best for them.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
It does! And they wish to get donations. There's a button right at the top on the site making that clear.
> In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from anyone.
Yes, so what? It is true that they wished to not require payment. That is one of their wishes, but they have more than one wish. And if they required payment, that wouldn't be a donation anyway.
Would it be nice? Sure. But "not donating" is also fine.
"Donations" are, by definition, entirely voluntary. Whether someone using the software under its proper licensing terms is wealthy, whether you approve of their business model, or other factors are all irrelevant.
Requirements are about legal obligations, not moral ones.
> Would it be nice? Sure. But "not donating" is also fine.
It's in general fine not to donate to libreoffice. But that doesn't extend to 100% of circumstances.
> "Donations" are, by definition, entirely voluntary. Whether someone using the software under its proper licensing terms is wealthy, whether you approve of their business model, or other factors are all irrelevant.
As a third party I can judge someone for not donating based on their circumstances. It's not irrelevant. The moral implications are not part of the definition of donation.