Comment by cxr

You, along with the original author, are selectively framing the issue. The original author's words:

> This all boils down to a situation where you have many profit-generating companies using software that some programmer volunteered to write. That software contributes to that company making even more money. But the developer sees none

Which developer? Because what I see going on matches what Stringer actually says earlier in the post: "There are lots of users, many in a corporate sense using my software to further progress their organization."

So you have at least two persons here; there is no "the" developer.

First, you have a company trying to make money. And then you have a developer trying to get money from their company (and not just that, but getting it, and generally trying to get more). Let's call this a type-1 developer. On top of that, you have a developer upstream writing the software in question that "contributes to that company making even more money". Let's call this a type-2 developer.

What we're neglecting to acknowledge here, and what most conversations like these fail to acknowledge , is that it's not merely "the company" that is benefiting from the work of the upstream developer. It's the type-1 developer, too.

If type-1 developers are effective at converting the labor from type-2 developers into personal enrichment, internal accolades from their employer, general career trajectory, &c, then type-1 developers really ought to acknowledge their culpability in the system that leaves type-2 developers undercompensated. This doesn't really happen, though. Most developers with a type-1 role wrt some money-earning scheme (i.e. the ones employed at a company) seem to treat their TCP, which is on average includes a salary alone that is well above the combined income of a typical household, as a sacrosanct natural right that should not be examined at this level.