Initially, Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for download, named Torvalds's directory linux.
Just recently we had the author of Octave, thinking about giving up development, because of exactly this problem, so excuse me if you don't think my remark was mature enough.
Your comment attacked an entire user base, their collective crime being that they don't share your particular (weak) moral values about the distribution of software intended for use on the Linux desktop.
Worst of all, you now insinuate that a problem suffered by one author of one application that is used on the GNU/Linux desktop is a problem for all.
Not everybody can "pay for" (support monetarily) free software. I personally don't see why it is any of your damn business what I do and do not "pay" for. My distribution does not make a huge deal over asking for donations but I do support them both monetarily and otherwise. Frankly, I think the 'other' ways that I support the free software movement are more valuable than whatever money I can chuck at a guy whose program I like.
Plenty of free software developers and maintainers would agree with your line of reasoning, which is part of the beauty of free software. But few of those people would argue that yours is a decent reason to attack their entire user base.
I wish this wasn't a deeply nested comment attached to a somewhat unrelated article because I think this is a really interesting discussion that deserves its own thread. There are some genuinely interesting ethical questions here.
FWIW, I feel that people who have the money to do so should support the artists, engineers, and other folks who create the things they use and enjoy. I buy books rather than borrow them from the library for this reason: I want to give the authors more money, so that hopefully they'll keep writing the books I love to read.
I know not everyone shares my perspective, though.
Because users like yourself feel entitled to have access to the work of others without regard how we manage to pay our bills.
All nice and good when it is possible to sell books, consulting services or hide the software behind a SaaS pay-wall that helps to pay the bills, which is absolutely not the case for desktop software unless it is web based applications behind that pay-wall.
Thus preventing any kind of long term business model targeting the GNU/Linux desktop.
Which is yet another reason why many rather target app stores nowadays.
Where is this bitterness and hostility coming from? How do you know what kind of user I am, and what kinds of works I may or may not be personally responsible for within the free software community?
I happen to know the struggle you speak of first-hand. I paid my bills early on in my journey by teaching courses related to the subject matter my project touched upon. Free software has _no opinions_ on the adequate income model for developers who involve themselves in its world. The beauty of free software is that it is agnostic to your kind of ethics-mongering, which is why I have chosen to be so intimately involved in it myself.
We all need to make a living, and I don't have any presumptions over how someone chooses to do it. However, I think you would be better to not force your particular difficulties and decisions on this front on the entire GNU/Linux user base.
Why should one feel entitled to use software legally available for free? Do you feel guilty for using HN without paying YC for it? What a weird concept.
Yes, there's a lack of money in Free Software. Yes, there are consequences from that, like the abandonment of certain projects. That doesn't mean non-paying users are somehow guilty of something, that's a poisonous attitude.
I am not sure how more maturely should he put it, but it is definitely true. You can verify it by looking at statistics from different category of software: games, CAD apps, etc.
