I'm giving up on open source

I still see that today. From the volunteers who coordinate 4th of July celebrations to the 4-H mentors to that guy who hauls his own equipment over every month to mow the vacant lot next to the town park, just because somebody needs to do it or it won't get done. Most of these people have day jobs. The folks who rescued people from freeway car crashes back in the day and the ones who still do it today have day jobs. Some are professional paramedics on the clock in the big city who do it for free out in the little village where they live on their days off.

I know the world of open source software is bigger than that. But I still see the world through the lens I acquired in childhood.

Though I don't think that's what most projects want. You still want feedback usually. You just want to skip the entitled users.

I think calling that naïvety brings inaccurately benign connotations. It is possible to be naïve while thinking the best of people, and understanding in good faith that everybody is probably trying. Naivety alone doesn't make somebody's default cynical and bitter.

> This uncle was just a very naive person, it's like he thought these people's entire existence was to run kids sporting events.

If you literally cannot even conceive of other people existing in any way that doesn't directly serve your own desires, I think that's less naivety, and more arrogance and entitlement.

I don't think people should get any more cynical. That's why we have this problem. The solution isn't to become more like them.

But it is absolutely vital to understand that there are those types of cynical individuals out there. That's fine. Block them out as appropriate; You don't owe them anything, and they wouldn't reciprocate anyway. Keep an eye on them and take steps to protect yourself when they start to get too opportunistic/actively sabotaging/slanderous etc.

> Open source is great, but it's not sustainable

It can be (I work for an open source company, our friends at Nextcloud are also fine, there plenty of examples of thriving projects), but it's a hard thing to tackle for sure and might not apply to every kinds of projects. As any kind of business, a business around open source requires a solid business strategy.

I also think dev libraries / components are probably among the hardest things to fund. I think the tools themselves should be open source and the dev subsidized by something else (a product for which the tool is developed, or consulting, or support, or hosting).

You can also sell entreprisy features to companies, even as free software actually (open core is not necessary, and the bulk of the feature can also be in a gratis module and you only sell the convenient UIs). Make it easy to employees of a company using your work to justify an expense. People will be happy to support your work if they like it by making their employer pay, and the employer will most likely be happy to pay because this can be reassuring, especially if support comes with the payment. It's way easier than relying on donations.

In any case, your open source business strategy of course needs to take in account that people will use your open source code for free, and will also report bugs, feedback, feature requests, ask questions, and this is costly. Sometimes you can manage to setup a community where people help each other, addressing the issue partially.

You'll need to have good communication on what is paid for, what are the expectations, etc; and well prepared answers to requests in tickets that both makes it clear you need to keep the lights on and don't piss people off. With good phrasing most people will understand and be grateful you are providing many things for free.

Of course there will be the mean comments. Some are not actually meant to be mean, but just come from people being pissed off or from misunderstandings. Effective communication can help with this. And some just come from jerks, unfortunately. I can only wish you good luck with this. Hang in there. Don't let them hurt you and take bad decisions. Hopefully (fortunately?) they are very few. Keep in mind most people are well meaning, grateful and most are quiet, especially when things work well for them.