You're talking fair while I'm talking about the only legitimate way I can pay you for your time as an open source dev.
It would be nice if I could have my client retroactively pay you for your dev time in full but I like working with the client and don't fancy being laughed out of the room
In case you missed the subtext I rarely if ever actually use the support, I can just justify it to bigcorp's beancounters. Chances are you already provide the support for free in Issues anyway but I have a way to pay. I just want people paid at all mate. We can work on fair later
An OSS developer who wants to be paid needs to think like a business. They are more a business that happens to OSS. That would preclude certain OSS products while making others more viable. It is good to strategic. Best for most is to find a company to pay a salary for them to maintain it.
Don't be clever about it, don't be per request about it, just give me a number and an invoice.