Nobody said anything about "owing." Simply that we've been "compensated" via tremendous value hence as programmers there's no need to feel exploited for providing "free" labor.

Life gives what one gives it. Pretty appalling attitude up above. I was never more rich than when I did everything in the open.

Most of them didn't start as such, and only got funding after years, sometime decades, of free work.

And even then, half of the work is still done for free.

And that's only for the most famous one. E.G: the huge majority of free libs in JS or Python are purely pro bono.

And even after the money arrived, some very popular software have very little money compared to the produced work: eg: the PSF.

All in all, my entire computer contains millions of euros of software I didn't pay.

It's sad enough you don't want to participate, but it's a choice we must respect. But don't be discouraging other people actually giving something, it's insulting.

Not all projects are well funded, the openSSL heartbleed fiasco comes to mind.