That’s a fair point! For me, though, open-source was my gateway into the world of engineering, so I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for it. Without it, I would be nothing.

See my comment below and the link to my writeout, FOSS is cool, but completely unsustainable. It's like slavery, but worse.

It depends on how you define noble. I like to think that an open source product can also inspire confidence in those who use it

Perhaps it does, but that doesn't justify giving it out for free, especially not in today's day and age

Making a project open source does not mean that it has to be free. There are many open source projects that also sell services that are not free, such as Sentry, SigNoz, Redis, etc.

One “noble” thing you can do is choose the right license and restrict commercial use unless paid for.

That's just a pipedream.

Amazon stole elasticsearch (opensearch), apple made appstore from the ideas of cydia/installer.app and IBM gutted Redhat (Linux) and are now selling it to Enterprises for their more fancy security. Big corps will just steal your FOSS and repurpose it, bundle it up, maybe obfuscate it a little bit here and there and resell it. Just imagine the sheer volume of FOSS running meta,google,aws and all the FANGS. Licenses dont mean anything, are easy to work around and besides, you can't fight these companies, especially not prove anything major.

And if not that they'll comply with the letter but not the spirit so you're going to have to send them snail mail or fax to receive a copy of the open source parts but it won't build because they have a whole slew of requirements that you'll never be able to meet.

Malicious compliance.

Most recent example: Rigol.

Exactly.

Yup, I agree with you 100% here.

This is exactly what should not be possible to happen.

Would you believe I said the same damn thing after initially joining here almost a decade ago, and got karma bombed at the time for even suggesting the possibility.

Funny how times have changed.

Use https://outspeaker.com instead

@jacquesm exactly

It is what you make it.

As long as you give what you can realistically spare, there should be no complaint about not getting compensation later.

An open-source architect is one who creates standardized designs. All their plans are free to obtain, and since they are pre-certified by the municipality, all costs associated with approvals can be bypassed so long as the plans are followed exactly.

An open-source chef is one who works at a restaurant, but wants to spread around the joy of cooking like Alton Brown does, dropping knowledge and techniques that only someone with decades of experience would have.

An open-source electrician is one who reviews questions posed by DYI-ers and provides answers or designs that can help them solve issues while staying safe.

An open-source lumberjack is one who demonstrates how to harvest wood from private land sustainably, and how to process it appropriately with low-cost tools.

All of these involve “work” that does not get compensated for in any direct manner, yet improves the community as a whole and provides real aid for those who most desperately could use it.

And that is noble.

Sorry, but I reject your premise entirely. Open source work is noble, does produce material benefits in excess to what capitalism could ever provide, and brings power to the masses instead of concentrating it into the hands of a minuscule cadre of parasites and economic vampires who are already far more obscenely wealthy than the vast majority of us will ever get to experience.

Maybe if we weren’t enslaved to a violently coercive economic system that demanded we be wildly profitable to someone else least we suffer destitution, homelessness, and even death, we could have a chance of building a better system.