Is it enough that we are all doing this free work out of a sense of community spirit? And if we were all working for less money, in jobs that left us exhausted or dispirited, would we continue?
Or, as any number of cynics have told me over the years, are we just suckers?
A prominent Linux hacker of my acquaintance said they had stopped working on the project after meeting, at conferences, endless smug and unlikeable bankers who, they realised, were pursuing execrable goals from their efforts.
Vastly profitable edifices like Facebook and Google are built on the groundwork of open source software.