Something I never quite understood is the extreme fanboyism as seen in the "FOSS Scene"---the Free and Open Source Software scene. Many folks pride themselves on never touching anything that isn't open source, and while I applaud the effort and am glad they're glad with their choice, I just think that view heavily suffers from tunnel vision.

If you're an artist and you create a work, you'll eventually want to create another, hence some form of financial self-insurance is needed. You might be disgusted at the thought of selling your babies, but if that's what it takes to both be able to produce more and to spread your work, then why not? Software development can't be fully compared with the creation of physical objects as ones and zeroes can be copied, creating a whole slew of other ethical, political, and financial problems.

But if you're a FOSS fan, you obviously also want your favorite software to be actively maintained. And that costs time, which obviously has to be compensated for (I'm disregarding the time is money mantra here). So the first letter in the abbreviation FOSS is actually very misleading, and some people replace it with an L for Libre. Free in FOSS does NOT mean free of cost. Bigger FOSS projects create an enterprise or SaaS branch where companies or power users pay for support and hosting. And then of course there's donating.

It boils down to the following: if you like the software you use, pay for it. Whatever the development and license model. Whether it's closed source or open source, whether it's FOSS or Libre: developers need your support. If you're a developer yourself and would like to contribute in the form of patches, even better---that's also paying and possibly even worth more than your hard earned green.

I too recognize the many advantages of open source software, especially when it comes to the privacy and security of the end users: it's the only way to create a layer of transparency, where other technical experts can audit---sometimes disguised in the form of cursing---the code. Some arguments against closed source software, like Nora's Open Source for Normal People, make little sense in context of for example a video game:

First, the people who made the software are the only ones who know how it works. Second, the people who made the software are the only ones who are really sure about what it does.

True. So? For me as an end user of a particular subset of software, like productivity tools such as Alfred that comes with a support forum and plugin community, that's not an issue. For me as an end user of games, that are supposed to be "finished" products, I don't care either. For more critical software that requires long term support and comes with security considerations, that's an entirely different case.

Furthermore, when it comes to making money, everyone, including FOSS cheerleaders, knows that living off donations is incredibly difficult, and not everyone has the courage or energy to start up a business spin-off based on your open source software. "But, but, RedHat!"---is the exception. That's why I think we should still respect people who develop closed source software; there's nothing wrong with that---provided their intentions are (1) clearly stated and (2) ethically sound.

Some good examples:

• Sublime HQ has been successfully living off Sublime Text's shareware model since 2008. Most plugins are community-built and open source. Compared to the open source Visual Studio Code, it's much more mature and less sneaky when it comes to telemetry and other Microsoft bullshit. Also, thanks to the license model, the company doesn't need to rely on the usual investor or upscaling nonsense.
• The Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher apps, available with just a one-off payment, became very competent alternatives for the ridiculously expensive Adobe Cloud pricing model. Compared to the open source Gimp, their UI and integration is already years ahead.
• The video game industry thrives off sales from closed source software, and these heterogeneous teams usually consist of multi-talented folks where a portion of the money goes to art, music, development, design, writing, the closed source software used to build assets, ...

Some bad examples:

• macOS is, compared to Linux or BSD-based OSes, a nightmare for kernel plug-in developers: there is no readily available full-blown documentation available, and it's often a mystery as to which process does exactly what. If it was open source, we'd know more about the M1/M2 chip implementation and revers-engineering Linux on MacBooks would make much faster progress.
• Android is Google's open source smartphone OS but notorious for its customer data collection. Still, it's easier to develop for compared to iOS, as it doesn't require an Apple OS or an Apple developer subscription.
• Nintendo's (3)DS OS and platform documentation is hidden behind an expensive development toolkit that would not have been needed if it was to be initially released as (partial) open source in 2007, just like the PlayDate or the FPGA core system of the Analogue Pocket. Because of it, reverse engineering takes a lot of work and usually lags behind.

I'm fairly certain that to some, the above reasoning looks like a deliciously aged Swiss cheese, but still. What I'm trying to say is: there's nothing wrong with open source software (to an extend). There's also nothing wrong with closed source software (to an extend). So why can't both worlds respect with each other a bit more? I'm happy to hear your thoughts on this.

To close out, here's a selection of software I use and paid for.

Open source:

• KeePass
• Firefox
• Rectangle
• mGBA
• GoatCounter
• Navidrome
• Various people at GitHub maintaining open source projects, too many to list
• ...

Closed source:

• Sublime Text
• Alfred
• SpamSieve
• Affinity Designer
• DEVONThink
• Obsidian
• JetBrains development IDEs
• macOS (I sincerely hope that somewhat justifies the price of the MacBook)
• Any video game, too many to list
• ...