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.
The goal is to collectively free humans from the enslavement and dangers that proprietary computing represents.
It’s a collective fight for freedom. Then of course we must continuously question and revise the tactics, and invent new ways of funding, sustaining, supporting, etc… the goal.
more on the topic: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ (that greatly predates the coining of the confusing, narrowing term “open source” as an attempt to replace/erase the philosophical goals of free/libre software)