I'm unbiased towards the subject. I'm genuinely curious about how long-term FOSS ideology would work.
I'm using FOSS but I'd still consider myself a casual user. It seems like most FOSS I've seen is a free, buggy, alternative to mainstream software, which resolves a problem the user had.
From my perspective, (and do correct me if I'm wrong) FOSS doesnt seem sustainable. Everyone can contribute, but how do they make a living? My guess is they do other things for income. And what about the few contributors who do 90% of the work?
What if every software became FOSS? Who would put in the free labor to write the software to print a page, or show an image on screen, or create something more complex like a machine learning advanced AI software?
Would it simply be that everyone provides for each other? Everyone pitches in? What about people who have bills to pay? Would their bills be covered?
This concludes my right-before-bed psychology inquiry.
Good question, I was thinking about this the other day. The reason being that development of several fediverse apps has seemingly stalled because the previously active developers have life issues. (I’m not moaning about it, just a straightforward account)
It seems to me that FOSS developers wouldn’t want their projects to be popular. Because that comes with pressure to constantly improve or expand and it takes up more time. So they start a Patreon or similar but that adds more pressure.
When projects are community developed then I see disagreements and personality clashes which increases stress for lead developers.