Folks, free software, open-source, whatever you want to call it, it’s a wonderful thing. It is somebody saying, “I have worked very hard to solve these problems. Here’s my solution, here’s the result of all those hours of hard work and debugging and troubleshooting. Here is the code that makes it work. You can run it, you can modify it, you can study it, you can sell it, you can do anything you like with it. And I don’t expect anything in return”, and I find it astonishing how many people out there think that isn’t good enough. “You shared this code, now you must support it forever for free. Your code doesn’t solve my problem, fix it. How dare you even raise the possibility that at some point in the future you might want to get some sort of remuneration for your hard work?”
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again, I’ll keep saying it: people who share their source code do not owe you anything. You get the code, you get the freedom to run it and study it and modify it, and that’s it. And if that’s not enough for you, then it’s up to you to figure out what you want and how to get it. Pay for a license, maintain your own fork, hire somebody to maintain it for you, switch to a different package. That’s your problem. But the only reason you found yourself in this position in the first place is that somebody was smart enough to solve the problem and kind enough to share their solution for free. And if you feel like somehow that person has done you a disservice, maybe sit down, have a little think about your life.
Dylan Beattie