A huge part of open source is open community, open to feedback, open to suggestions, feature requests and contributions. Obviously there's no entitlement but it's one of the few actual benefits of open sourcing.
Edit: I know about "open source but not open contribution" thing which is quite rare (esbuild for one). I don't think that's a good idea for the health of the project.
I know not everyone has the mental strength to run and moderate a community but in the software world, a community is akin to being a celebrity. People follow you, wait on you, listen to you, value you, troll you, throw insults at you, shout at you, and show attitude to you when you don't owe them anything. The best part is that someone somewhere knows you. Fame is a huge motivator.
If all of the open source projects had huge communities and no funding, there'd be more actively maintained projects than there are now with very few communities. I might even say that a few dollars here and there might not even make a huge difference compared to a few people making issues, taking interest and contributing.
Now I know not everyone is like that or should be like that. I am not generalizing here but come on. When you put your effort out there, it is quite reasonable to expect some form of compensation or appreciation.
If all the open source projects just put the code out there and called it a day, that'd be a huge disservice to the world. Open source is the birthing ground for a lot of software engineers and all their learning is due to them being a part of a community and contributing.
And as to be expected the bad comes with the good. That's alright. If you take the decision to run a community, don't worry about a few bad apples here and there. It's a part of the deal.
The benefits of being open community far outweigh the cons. It's no obligation but it sure is a good thing.
while i agree that open contribution software is a genuine good for this world for the reasons you enumerate, it is a _subset_ of open source software. OSS by itself does not imply that the author wishes to manage a community around the code they are freely giving. this common conflation causes authors to abandon or suppress ever releasing their source openly.
Edit: I know about "open source but not open contribution" thing which is quite rare (esbuild for one). I don't think that's a good idea for the health of the project.
I know not everyone has the mental strength to run and moderate a community but in the software world, a community is akin to being a celebrity. People follow you, wait on you, listen to you, value you, troll you, throw insults at you, shout at you, and show attitude to you when you don't owe them anything. The best part is that someone somewhere knows you. Fame is a huge motivator.
If all of the open source projects had huge communities and no funding, there'd be more actively maintained projects than there are now with very few communities. I might even say that a few dollars here and there might not even make a huge difference compared to a few people making issues, taking interest and contributing.
Now I know not everyone is like that or should be like that. I am not generalizing here but come on. When you put your effort out there, it is quite reasonable to expect some form of compensation or appreciation.
If all the open source projects just put the code out there and called it a day, that'd be a huge disservice to the world. Open source is the birthing ground for a lot of software engineers and all their learning is due to them being a part of a community and contributing.
And as to be expected the bad comes with the good. That's alright. If you take the decision to run a community, don't worry about a few bad apples here and there. It's a part of the deal.
The benefits of being open community far outweigh the cons. It's no obligation but it sure is a good thing.