> This is software support, it is a job, it should be paid.

What's stopping any open source maintainer from charging for their work?

Irrelevance. The moment you paywall a project, it’s a death sentence. Unless you have a unique and highly sought-after product (top 1%), someone else will just make a free alternative.

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direwolf20 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

Some projects were successful at charging for custom work and special support — sqlite for instance.

	▲	boca_honey 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, that's an example of a top 1% project. It even has a detailed Wikipedia article in 35 languages. That model won't fly with small to medium-sized, regular projects.