Who is "they" in this context?

A permissive license allows anyone to take someone else's work, profit from it, and never contribute back to the original project. For someone advocating for fairness, it's remarkable how you ignore this very real and common scenario.

> Many people think they're owed more software, including fixes to software, without compensating the laborer. That worldview is the real problem.

Compensation is orthogonal to F/LOSS. Authors are free to choose whatever income streams they like, and many successful businesses have been built around F/LOSS. Whoever is expecting people to work without compensation is being unreasonable, of course.

But F/LOSS as a social movement goes beyond a mere financial transaction. It works on the basis of mutual trust, where if I share something you find valuable, then the acceptable "payment" for that work is for you to do the same. This collaborative effort is how the highest quality products are produced.

The irony of your point is that a permissive license allows precisely the scenario you're arguing against. We've seen corporations profit from the work of others without compensating them for it. So much so, that OSS projects are forced to roll back their permissive licenses, often going too far in the other direction, to where they can no longer be labeled as "Open Source". E.g. Elastic: Apache -> SSPL -> AGPL; Redis: BSD -> SSPL; HashiCorp: MPL -> BSL; etc.

That is the actual problem which copyleft licenses prevent.

Not giving anything back is fair because the author's license specifically allows them to do that. A gift has no expectation of anything in return. God blesses such generosity because it's a a truly, selfless act.

re compensation

Compensation is not orthogonal to FLOSS. Copyright was mainly designed to ensure work couldn't be shared without paying the author. Anything given for free dramatically decreases the chance of getting paid. OSS and FLOSS almost guarantee no money is made on standalone software but GPL with CLA's allows dual licensing to recover some.

If anyone uses permissive licenses, it's a gift where they're not (in legal terms) expecting money. Some try to sell it or ask for donations, too, which is incompatible with the license. The free license usually undermines that. It works for some people to some degree, though.

Re roll backs

I didn't argue against any scenario. The original person I replied to appeared to be arguing that it was evil to give software away with no obligations. I had to explain what a gift is and why it's morally good to give. I believe the reason is years of people promoting FOSS politics which I now see are rooted in ideas similar to socialism or communism. It wouldn't surprise me if Stallman was a closet communist and just repackaged those ideas into software licensing.

(Note: I feel like I'm going to have to think more on that political angle given I've been influenced by such people for years on these sites. I'll do a fresh take at some point.)

On companies being unsustainable, I've already explained what happened. Their goal included selfish gain (money/contributions) from selfish entities who normally take but don't give. Their goal was also to build, individually or collectively, a shared work. They used a license that said it's a one-time gift with no obligations. So, entities took the gift and felt no obligations to return anything. Surprise!

Now, they've changed to licenses that suit their commercial and/or property goals. That may or may not work for them. Whereas, the companies successfully marketing proprietary software are able to build it up to their hearts' content. Some companies give out the source or dual license under GPL/AGPL. They should probably do Parity License to close remaining gaps and see if FOSS people are really about the free commons.

License Zero and Polyform have new licenses to help. I conceptualized some in the past that allow modifications, forks, etc so long as the customer keeps paying. Then, redistribution among paying customers. I'd like to see more models for people aiming for sustainability with software freedoms baked in.

Many people (corporations) think they're owed more money beyond the labor. This is why SaaS is a major business model these days. The marginal cost of software is zero, and yet people expect to keep getting paid for it over and over.