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.