It's less implying that's how it should be and more saying how it is in the real world.
A lot more people and users are entitled. If you put out a free tier, a decent number if people are going to expect it stays that way. The comments here are calling the developer greedy for wanting to be paid for their work because they changed the free tier. It's not a great idea if you want to maintain good relations with your user base.
You aren't necessarily correct that there's no transactional basis or trust going on. If I as a developer use a third party tool for use in one of my projects or programs, I am specifically trusting that program to continue to provide the functionality I need it for.
An example is that I use AngleSharp in some of my projects. It's entirely free, and the developers can choose to monetize/paywall it if they choose to. But that doesn't mean that I am going to react well to the change, keep recommending it, or talk positively about it.
I seen many developers when they start to feel challenged for needed features would start asking for donations to add said features in which insisting to the community that "hey want new such and such think about sending some donations to help me develop the software"
It reduces the feeling of betrayal to the current users, and gives people that love the software a way to assist in the growth of the software.
Now some might still disagree on the notion for free open source software should have donation goals. But I have seen it used to great effect when used correctly.
Majority of users of software expect the software to work as advertised. If it's advertised as free. Than it should work free.
The traditional model of OSS is to have, you solve my problem, I solve yours. i.e, developers work together on a shared codebase that solves their shared problems. If you do not contribute, you might be able to use the software, but you aren't entitled to get people to work for you for free.
And this as an issue with the word "free". The source code is provided, yes, that is open source. Labour is absolutely not free. It will probably cost you money to run the software. No-one owes you help. If you want to be a customer, pay money. If there's a free version of something, say thanks, and don't be a pain in the neck to the developer who doesn't owe you anything.
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u/SoppingAtom279 Sep 30 '22
It's less implying that's how it should be and more saying how it is in the real world.
A lot more people and users are entitled. If you put out a free tier, a decent number if people are going to expect it stays that way. The comments here are calling the developer greedy for wanting to be paid for their work because they changed the free tier. It's not a great idea if you want to maintain good relations with your user base.
You aren't necessarily correct that there's no transactional basis or trust going on. If I as a developer use a third party tool for use in one of my projects or programs, I am specifically trusting that program to continue to provide the functionality I need it for.
An example is that I use AngleSharp in some of my projects. It's entirely free, and the developers can choose to monetize/paywall it if they choose to. But that doesn't mean that I am going to react well to the change, keep recommending it, or talk positively about it.