What about the opportunity cost? You paid for this code with your time, which otherwise, if you felt like it, you presumably could have used to earn money. If your time is worthless, then indeed the code costs nothing; is it? That's the point the author's making.

The key is "if you felt like it". He didn't, not because he felt his time is worthless but because he wrote it for himself and if it helps anyone else, well that's just making him happy for having helped someone.

It's not arguing that it didn't cost anything. It's arguing that it's his choice whether he wants to cover his costs or give it away for free.

If someone was forced to license their software under the GPL, then the author would have a point. But he doesn't.

You're confusing the cost to you with the cost to me.

You're correct that there was an opportunity cost for me to write the code. I spent a few hundred hours on it, when I might have been programming for money. Fair enough.

But when we talk about whether software is free, the question is either how much is costs to use it (i.e. is it free as in beer?) or what license it uses (i.e is it free as in freedom?).

In this case, the cost to you is $0-- free as in beer-- and the license is the GPL-- free as in freedom. (Perhaps we can omit the GPL vs. BSD argument here.)

A better counter-argument might talk about the opportunity cost for you to use free software.

I'm not confusing anything, I'm explaining to you what the original author meant by software not ever been free. Someone always bears the cost; if the user pays nothing whatsoever, the developer pays with his/her time, which they could have used otherwise to program for money. Yes, this isn't what's usually meant by the code not being free, but that is the author's entire point. He's arguing that the usual way to talk about it - the one you recap in your sentence starting "But when we talk about whether software is free, the question is..." - is deceptively incomplete.

The author has a point - one I don't sympathize with much, by the way - and he's explaining it clearly. His reward? An alarming number of commentators here on YC smugly calling him an idiot and repeating with tedious condescention the standard talking points on freedom, gratis, etc., advertising nothing much beyond their lack of reading comprehension and a healthy knee-jerk reflex.

My apologies if I seemed smug, tedious, condescending, knee-jerky, or whatever. I'm not intentionally repeating anything I read somewhere else. I'm just thinking about my own experience with free software, and then writing what I think.

I do genuinely think that there are two different costs for software-- the cost to the programmer and the cost to the user. The two costs have no relation to one another.

I agree that you and the original author are both talking about the cost to the programmer when you say that "free software" is not really free, in that the programmer bears an opportunity cost, as you described earlier. That's true. You, the original author, and I all agree on that point.

Where we disagree, I think, is about whether that cost is important. I think that proprietary and free software have roughly the same cost to the programmer, i.e. it takes just as long, just as much effort, to write code, regardless of whether you're getting paid. Since the cost to the programmer is the same for both, it's not a distinguishing feature of free software.

If he just means that there is a cost to create all software, it's an obvious conclusion. I don't think I've ever heard anyone claim otherwise, i.e. that free software is created without time and effort by programmers. That's why I don't find the original argument compelling.

The author has a point, and I think the "free as in freedom" comments are clearly missing that point. But I wouldn't say it is explained very clearly. It's framed as an attack on what appears to be a straw man. Finding a frame of reference to interpret the tirade is hard[1], and the point about the costs of work must be extracted from the rest.

[1] Hard to do well. It's pretty easy to make vague assumptions and proceed from there.

You're right, and thanks for checking my ire. I probably exaggerated the merits of the tirade because I was so annoyed by all the smug comments that so clearly missed the not-so-sophisticated point about the cost of work. I still think it's an interesting rant, even if it could have been better structured and less ranty.

If he otherwise would have used the time to smoke dope and watch TV then arguably that tranche of time had 0 financial value associated with it. This assumes that he's equally recuperated by coding and so the coding doesn't impact the hours in which he is gainfully employed.

Presumably you think that having a crap at a free public toilet is not free because it takes you time to do it.