One of my favorite programs was acting up, so I went to reinstall. Turned out this program that has been free for a decade, now wants $29 a month, to let me pirate movies. Da fuck? What a way to shit the bed, to offer the same free program but charge for it out of nowhere
You can literally donate 1ct. I have no idea how people can complain when developers want money for their work.
The "Linux community" is 80% users that dont contribute, 10% "powerusers" that still dont contribute, 5% people that help with nondevelopment work (bug reporting, community support, etc.) and 5% actual developers.
I hear you. I think it's just exceedingly rare. Not saying it doesn't exist, I just think giving it a name is a little strange given how unbelievably rare it is. But, you got to start somewhere! So, I digress. I guess, here it is. 🤷♂️
In English, the correct meaning of words is always optional. The language is fluid, literally anything can be a euphemism; idk if that's also the case in other languages but it regularly trips up even native speakers.
Even so, even with that much flexibility built into the language, this is still just malignant, cynical, toxic lying of the worst sort.
I dunno this lacks nuance… I think this could easily be referring to different economic situations. The concept of donation usually has this implication of not being a for-profit entity or for a indie developer’s side project. These kinds of apps usually are still either open source or source available which is different than closed, proprietary applications. With this focus on money, I would assume that “free” is meaning gratis where users can often be the product & while the source is not available …or some VC-funded product where they are loss-leading a free tier now just eventually charge everyone later which is hardly good, with a dash of open washing to taste.