> But after a few minutes it occurred to me that I just did free labor for a for-profit trading company. If they merged in my code then must have thought it had some value, and I decided to dedicate my time to saving this multi million dollar company some money.
If you're not ok with that possibility than you probably shouldn't be participating in open source.
And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. Its up to each individual to decide how they want to spend there time. There are pros and cons to open source, and you have to weigh how you feel about them yourself.
However, its not like this is some secret trick. Its the central tenant of Open Source (esp. When using that name instead of Free software). It should be very clear that this is happening. Its the entire point.
It kind of feels a bit like someone who doesn't like oranges, eats oranges, and then are surprised that they taste like oranges. By all means if you don't like oranges don't eat them, but if you knew you didn't like them why did you eat it in the first place?
It’s just why I have become disillusioned with it. I think companies exploit well-meaning people that should be paid for their work. I have used Linux and open source tools for roughly the last twenty years, a part of me loves open source, but I think that big corporations take advantage of this love and it devalues labor.
Which is why I have stopped participating in it. If I am doing work that provides value to a company then they should pay me for it.
Here's what I figured: Company misallocates fund. On the other hand, many engineers are overpaid from the same perspective (most of us here are, have been, or will be at some point, if we step out of the bubble and stop gawking at the acquihire next door). So I'm happy to shift my side of the scale a tad bit by donating a few k here and there. We can do the reallocation ourselves and the more who do, the more difference it can start to make.
If you're not ok with that possibility than you probably shouldn't be participating in open source.
And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. Its up to each individual to decide how they want to spend there time. There are pros and cons to open source, and you have to weigh how you feel about them yourself.
However, its not like this is some secret trick. Its the central tenant of Open Source (esp. When using that name instead of Free software). It should be very clear that this is happening. Its the entire point.
It kind of feels a bit like someone who doesn't like oranges, eats oranges, and then are surprised that they taste like oranges. By all means if you don't like oranges don't eat them, but if you knew you didn't like them why did you eat it in the first place?