Comment by Stormbringer

The thing that I object to is all too common: some really good developer makes something awesome, and then in a funk of false humility or whatever they think "no one would ever buy this" and then they think, welp, might as well just give it away for free.

It wasn't Angry Birds that devalued this guys contribution, he did it to himself.

Devaluing your programming contribution is an ebbing tide that lowers all boats.

----

In a separate issue. people say that the Angry Birds guys should stump up some chump change, because they had this hit. What about their responsibility to their actual employees? Why should this one guy get a handout over and above what they have done?

Does the logic flow both ways? If they put out a game that flops (and remember they did some 40+ games before hitting on Angry Birds) can they ask for the developer of any free frameworks they used to chip in and help cover their expenses? Of course not, it is ridiculous.

If the obligation isn't bi-directional, my guess is that the logic claiming the obligation is flawed.

------

Back in the dotcom bubble quite a few of the companies that hit it big gave Stallman free shares when they IPOed. Now RMS does a lot of strange things out of principle, and one of the more interesting things was that he would immediately sell those shares. Of course this was viewed as financially stupid, because he could have held onto them for a couple of months and got more, or a couple of years and got even more, or a couple of months more and got nothing. In retrospect it is a genius financial move, because he made money from it whereas a lot of people who went all in and then rode the bubble all the way till it popped lost everything.

But (amongst other things) what I think he was doing was stating basically that free software carries with it no such ties, there are no hidden strings saying "yes, have this and play with it, but if you hit it big I want some" - there was no obligation - and by rejecting the shares in that way he was making the point forcefully.