> If an author uses a license that makes big tech pay, they will not pay.

That's not my experience.

> But, of course, if the project has started with this license, it never would have gotten to the point where several big companies were using it.

That is very possible. We'll have to wait to see if any projects start with a maintenance fee then become popular.

> "hey do you want to set a norm of commercial users paying to use your software?"

My ideal would for the norm to shift such that companies think, "We're using this Open Source project, are we already paying the maintenance fee?" I don't know if that will actually work out but I know that if we don't try it will not.

The OSMF is my attempt to find out.