> Realistically though, I'm not going to build software for free any more than I'm going to tidy someone's garden for free.
replyI think the better analogy here would be to tidy the public park for free. It's about doing something for other people, being generous, making the world better with your genrousity. I think that in itself is something worthwile to try.
Considering the strong opinion on this topic, OP is probably young enough to not remember (or know) the 80s and 90s with too few free options for personal computing and most of the software is proprietary and non-free (exactly as the OP states). While it fueled the traction of shareware, it was a very different epoch, and impossible today with strict controls from MS, Google and Apple on what app is allowed to run. It's easy to wish the world to be different, but it would be much harder to live in with the today reality of secureboot and AppStore controls.
replyIt's possible to say we don't have personal colputers anymore, they are MS/Apple/Google's device now, as they decide what it is allowed to run and what isn't.
replylinux
replyYes, and becoming harder to use with UEFI removed S3 sleep (which MS pushed). I also expect banks and govts to force the requirement to have trusted platform (secureboot with some OS level stuff like in Android) to be able to log in from desktop, probably this or the next year. All "for your safety", sure. And for children's also.
replyThe price of freedom is eternal vigilance
replyJust because we’ve spent he last 30 years running Linux and not worrying about the nonsense in the wider computer world doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do the same for he next 30 years
The era of the hacker, the ethos of free software, it’s mostly over. In the 80s and 90s people could get jobs and write software on the side, Just for fun.
Today it’s all about side hustles.
Your one-word answer probably violates somebody's rules here. It's also perfect and therefore worthy of upvoting.
replyits definitely a double edged sword. individual developers are generally screwed financially. if you can make something sass you might be able to monetise it but chances are theres a better free version floating around or that the majority of people just dont want to think about computers and will pay m$lop instead. you could sell your idea to investors i guess but thats heavy sales. should software dev even be a paid profession? with enough tools, automation would be within everyones reach, i think thats where we are headed in general.
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