Yes, there are a lot of dimensions, hence Linux falling in multiple categories. It was started by an individual, but many of the current contributions are by people who are paid to work on it.
The story isn't simple for any big/successful project I can think of:
1) Started by a company for profit, vs. an individual for fun, or maybe profit.
2) Where the current commits come from, regardless of how the project started (contributor is paid or not paid)
I didn't mean to suggest that "free" and "commercial contribution" are mutually exclusive. The distinction I meant is whether the contributor is part of an organization that makes money from the software.
3) Whether the project was forked. WebKit was forked, LLVM was shepherded by Apple into a huge project, but Apple didn't start it. CyanogenMod was forked the other way (from a company to a commercial effort), and then turned back into a different company.
Additionally, some people might start a company to make open source software. And some employees might be paid more making proprietary software, but choose to work somewhere where they can work on open source.
So yes it's very complicated. This quote:
It is not charity work, any more than they charitably file taxes.
isn't useful, except for the very small number of people who think that "open source == free == no profit".
The story isn't simple for any big/successful project I can think of:
1) Started by a company for profit, vs. an individual for fun, or maybe profit.
2) Where the current commits come from, regardless of how the project started (contributor is paid or not paid)
I didn't mean to suggest that "free" and "commercial contribution" are mutually exclusive. The distinction I meant is whether the contributor is part of an organization that makes money from the software.
3) Whether the project was forked. WebKit was forked, LLVM was shepherded by Apple into a huge project, but Apple didn't start it. CyanogenMod was forked the other way (from a company to a commercial effort), and then turned back into a different company.
Additionally, some people might start a company to make open source software. And some employees might be paid more making proprietary software, but choose to work somewhere where they can work on open source.
So yes it's very complicated. This quote:
It is not charity work, any more than they charitably file taxes.
isn't useful, except for the very small number of people who think that "open source == free == no profit".