What's amusing to me is:

a. Replies don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not.

b. I don't know if people who upvoted this comment thought I was being sarcastic or not.

While I appreciate the original sarcasm, I don't appreciate this: sarcasm is almost by definition hard to tell apart from real opinion because you are taking the position of someone who'd have such an opinion.

Since I consider the opinion of open source developers being idiots unlikely and silly, I am reading your message in a "consider best possible interpretation" way, which is that it's an ironic joke.

I would imagine that's what most people who've upvoted you thought as well.

Basically, if you resort to sarcasm, your "amusing" dilemmas should have obvious answers or you are misapplying it or using it in the wrong context (unless you are really aiming for just being an odd man out in a particular group, also known as a "troll" :).

No, I was (of course?) being sarcastic. But the confused replies leave me more than a little worried that people genuinely agree with the sentiment!

Explain the logic behind this.

Not the GP, but my guess would be: irony.

>Not the GP, but my guess would be: irony.

It's sarcasm, actually. A rare event here.

Surely, irony is depicted in the open-source, decentralised crowd, berating someone doing something not for money.

Sarcasm is, by definition, use of irony to be a bit meaner than just make fun of something. It's still irony, and I am not even sure it qualifies for the sarcastic qualities on top.

I find that sarcasm or irony are pretty frequent on HN, or maybe it's just me who thinks it is so. ;-)

I think your definition is acceptable, in this forum context.

And yes, I see it here too, and try to reward it, though, alas, you and I are few.

>Surely the real idiots are the open source developers who give away code for free. Suckers.

A perfectly sarcastic remark. Rare to see here.

"Take my up vote" (or something like that).

Oh wait... Or are you serious?