- FOSS applications don't have to be distributed publicly — that's only the common social expectation
  - FOSS does not imply that the code should be available for non-customers. The developer decides who is the customer.
  - FOSS is *encouraged* to be sold for money, *you can sell others' software, even if it's originally free of charge* (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html)
  - Open-source licensed with non-free license is still open-source, although non-FOSS
  - You, as a developer, should not be ashamed to choose non-free open-source license if you want to earn (more) money on your software or apply additional restrictions for your benefit. It still could be copyleft.

> The author is making it "for people, for society, for everyone around them, interested in developing the project, adding new features (especially those I need), and improving it in every way for the benefit of all users. After all, if that's not the case, why even publish it?"

This, however, is just a most common social expectation of FOSS, but far from the only case. Lack of mention of this distinction between technical and social open source is the main cause of disagreements, disputes, and, ultimately, burnout due to misaligned social expectations.

I used to have to explain the problem and the difference to an outraged public, but recently I came across an article by Jeffrey Paul https://sneak.berlin/20250720/the-agpl-is-nonfree/ comparing open-source code to a gift! My explanation boiled down to:

"Don't like the gift, it doesn't suit you? Throw it out and forget it!"

> TL;DR: we invented LICENSE.md and stick to it a lot, but nobody thought of making SOCIAL.md.

I wonder if this always used to be the case, or is all this harassment the product of the past ~decade or so high exposure of open source software? As in no more sketchy websites or weird build pipelines to access them, they're basically slapped on github with an executable for anyone to use.