> The problem here is "open source" is seen as free support and working for "the community" for free and since the code is out there, no-one needs to pay the maintainers. (which is false)

I don't think this is true at all. FLOSS just means you are free to download a project, use it, and distribute it. There is absolutely no promise or expectation from the public of maintenance, nor is there absolutely no promise or expectation of monetary compensation from contributors.

The sole promise is "here's the code, have fun".

Heck, there isn't even any expectation that end-users contribute anything back to the project.

If you are a developer and have an expectation of receiving any monetary compensation, you should rethink your licenses. If you are an end-user and have any expectation of receiving maintenance work then you should reach out to whoever you seek to handle said maintenance and sort out business arrangements. In fact, that's exactly how it works. See for example how corporations pay maintainers to contribute and be involved in FLOSS projects. For extreme cases, see how a group of companies were quick to fork Redis to Valkey the moment that Redis tried to strong-arm it's way out of a FLOSS project. They had no problem amassing a set of maintainers in their payroll to take care of the code.

I'm perplexed by this expectation of FLOSS guaranteeing salaries to random maintainers who stick around and don't want to deal with the public. There are a few nasty stereotypes emerging from that assumption. Perhaps those nurturing these expectations should check the actual licenses to verify exactly what they cover and ensure.