[DB]

Doing things for free doesn't feed the family.

Software is the fruits of someone's labor.

There's nothing "just" about not being compensated for one's fruits that are consumed by others.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

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Software is the fruits of someone's labor.

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Something tells me Red Hat pays it's programmers very well.

[N3WBI3]

Doing things for free doesn't feed the family.

RedHat, Novell and others do pay their IT people

Software is the fruits of someone's labor.

Some people volunteer with the homeless, kids, visit nursing homes, coach little league, clean up parks of glass, plant urban gardens, .... All of this is labor and all of it is volunteer.

There's nothing "just" about not being compensated for one's fruits that are consumed by others.

So kids playing in a park cleaned by volunteers is not just? Should we force the kids to pay and the volunteers to accept?

[kevkrom]

Software is the fruits of someone's labor. There's nothing "just" about not being compensated for one's fruits that are consumed by others.

*Sigh* They are being compensated, just not financially. People who write open source also use it, so each of the contributors is just as much of a consumer. Also, putting the source out there for people to look at and modify results in improvements the original author can use that he may not have thought of or had the time to do.

No one is forced to write open source. If you want to sell your work for money, license it another way. Just don't expect to be able to use someone's work in your product without paying for it in some way.

[antiRepublicrat]

There's nothing "just" about not being compensated for one's fruits that are consumed by others.

And here I thought the Bible was pretty strong on the point of helping your fellow man.

[DesScorp]

Unless you're doing it as a volunteer service, a'la charity.

Or should charities and volunteer groups be outlawed because they interfere with someone else making a buck? No one makes you use Linux or anything else OSS for that matter. Microsoft and Apple will always be happy to take your money.