I think mixing altruism with work is a mistake, which is the sentiment I read into the (sarcastic) comment. The maintainer has very little leverage for payment if they continue working on the project for free.

The maintainer has to pick a side and commit to it, and deal with the downsides. Alternatively, they may choose not to play.

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matheusmoreira 4 days ago | parent [-]

I don't think he should be forced to pick sides. He made the thing, he knows the code base inside out. It would have been trivial for companies to hire him as a consultant or something since they're all depending on him. Why didn't they? It really makes no sense.

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aseipp 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nick Wellnhofer did not create libxml2 or libxslt, David Veillard did. Nick has been the primary contributor since about 2015, though.

	▲	matheusmoreira 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		My mistake, I apologize. Still, it looks like he maintained the library for a long time. He no doubt has more knowledge about the code base than outsiders. That ought to be valuable to corporations relying on the library and contributing security patches.

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overfeed 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Why didn't they?

Why buy the cow if the milk is free? The license let's them use it without payment, and in a just world, they'd pay all the maintainers of libraries they use, but ours isn't a just world, and we need to formulate our strategies with that in mind.

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lovich 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Why didn't they?

Because he continues to work for free? Companies are amoral actors. They aren’t going to donate out of charity and if someone wants to give them free work they won’t say no