> But if you're only doing that because you're afraid of going to hell, then someone has convinced you to work for free.Then I'd work for the comfort of not believing that I would go to hell. The basis of that belief may be an act of deceit, though, which I am not sure is relevant for open source software. The licenses are clear, and no one is promising anything magically wonderful or terrible to happen depending on my engagement in it. If they do and I bite, maybe I am dumb.
> If you make some software, and someone tells you how great it would be if it did different things, and then gets offended when you send them your day-rate, so you do it anyway, then someone has convinced you to work for free.
No, they have freed themselves from the responsibility of paying me for the work, clearly making it my problem. I then decide myself whether to do it based on what I gain from it. Maybe they convinced me to do it, but whether I'd do it for free is ultimately a matter of how I personally value the work.
> If you've got a more useful definition of "working for free" then I'm happy to hear it, and entertain it
Making an effort to achieve a result without gaining something from it? The only reason I could see myself working for free in this sense is if someone forces me to do it.
> I think these guys who go around trying to convince people that releasing "open source" is somehow "more free" and that "freedom is good" is a little bit like we've always been at war with Eastasia. It doesn't make sense to me: In a twisted sort of way, a slaveowner is more free than a non-slaveowner because they don't have obligations (like to work), but it doesn't make this sort of thing right. Being a slaveowner isn't right even if being free is.
"Open source" is not "more free" in any general sense. It just means that the source is available for free use and distribution. It doesn't necessarily make you more free, nor does it make anyone that is subject to whatever malicious purpose the software might serve more free. It frees the user of the software from a tiny set of specific obligations normally associated with licensing a copyright protected work. Those other things may be important but not at all what the BSD license concerns. Let the Intel-MINIX debacle be a lesson in the total orthogonality of freedom in general and free use of a piece of software.
> The nth copy of my software cost 1/n of my time.
No, it comes at no cost to you if you. Developing the software costs you time. That you reimburse yourself for the time it takes you to develop the software by charging for copies of it is an arbitrary choice, not an inherent relationship between the time spent and the number of copies made. If you were chopping wood, it might be a different matter, but with software, the time is spent on producing it, and selling a copy of piece of software doesn't mean you can't sell it again. The money you receive for a copy of a piece of software is rent.
Tanenbaum makes a great example of this. He is being paid for his work, yet the software is open source. He is not being paid for copies. Another good example is that of a simple employee. I get paid a monthly salary for performing a day job. Like Tanenbaum, I might get much less value out of it than the users of the software (or whoever is selling it) do, but I certainly don't work for free. I get paid for my effort and time, not for copies.