The person who made me the offer was very apologetic - as she said, it's not even my day rate - but as I said, I'd probably do it for nothing, no one's making a penny out of the software, it's really useful, and $500 isn't nothing.
I think they could get plenty of people to work on Debian for 10 hours a week for $10k a year, as a hobby.
I'd happily code all day long on stuff I really care about for minimum wage. And when I day minimum, I don't mean the penance described by the law that forces you to have multiple minimum wage jobs to get by. No, I mean one single job that pays enough to get by.
Even if that becomes the case, since this stuff goes though phases, a lot of college students or kids right out of high school would still jump at the chance to gain this sort of experience, alongside people like you, who just want their needs taken care of, a bit of spending money, and a job where they can focus on what they enjoy without too much demanding or stress. Same for older people with a lot of expertise, but who again want something less demanding but still enough to support them until they retire, or give them a purpose after they do so.
Like my dad, he's a network engineer, in a job like I described. He and my mom are a little over retirement age and plan to retire soon, but he's not one to just sit around the house all day. I think that's one reason he keeps saying he'll retire in 2 - 3 years, but says that year after year.
No, I'm thinking if you pay peanuts you'll get monkeys. It is rare for a situation to stay the same after money gets involved. People make decisions based on money.