I understand why somebody would be scared of that. They're big and important to the tune of many many billions of dollars, while you or I are not. But you shouldn't let that get to you. You should make a conscious effort to not let that get to you. If they want you to take their problems personally, let them hire you. If they can be broken by you but are unwilling to pay you, then fuck them. Put them lower in your priority queue than private individuals.

That, on its own, is fine. It brings you satisfaction rather than financial support. What starts being fishy is when companies like Amazon who can readily afford to offer financial support instead rely on and exploit that sense of obligation to get work done for free.

I realise this sounds whiny and that's not the point. The point is that by withholding FOSS contributors financial support, these companies are creating an environment in which the best and most dedicated contributors run the risk of burning themselves out, making everyone worse for it.

> It’s still not clear that companies would be interested in such a contract. When Stenberg asked the company that needed him to fly to a different country to troubleshoot their problem to pay for one, they refused.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

(Fuck you, pay me.)

- start a company around providing enterprise support services;

- ask for the large companies to provide some resources such as a part (or all) of an employee's time to work on the project, for the parts that are more dear to that company.

If a company is unwilling to pay, either in the form of a support contract or employee's time, it should look at another solution. Not just because they are being disrespectful/annoying/distracting to the maintainers of the OSS project but also because it means they don't have a good contingency plan for when things go wrong.

For a larger business, the value of using OSS is not to save money, it's to get the right level of customization for specific needs.

There's also a multitude of businesses selling support licenses for plugins/modules that extend OSS applications.

Really? If Amazon filed a bug on one of my repos I'd probably see dollar signs flashing.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

You know it's gone when you're ready to send them a cost estimate at twice your hourly rate.

Anyway, the developer does not need to stress out too much about Amazon employees having problems with their code...

But selflessness? That's the lie we tell ourselves when the true driver is something else, like narcissism.

It's not a bad lie. The outcome is pretty much the same while it lasts. But altruism is not a reliable motivator, and certainly not a requirement for volunteer work. A requirement is to have basic human needs met with some minimal security. Like, not having to judge everything you do by how much money it will earn you.