Comment by carlosjobim

Apologies, but I don't buy it. It's very easy for you to say that your programming is very beneficial and then in an extremely round-about way claim that your government gibs is what they rightfully owe you.

I enjoy painting, and could of course go and hang my paintings in the public square. Some very important lawyers and engineers might walk past my paintings on their way to work and be edified by them, thus increasing their productivity with 0.3% each day. That would translate into thousands of euros in increased tax revenue for the German government, so it's only fair that they keep paying me my gibs each month for me to keep painting, and stop bothering me about getting a job....

But I'd like to assume that your open source code is very important and essential for some IT applications. I wouldn't doubt that. That also means big businesses are using your code and making a lot of money from it, paying their engineers juicy salaries with that money. You should go to those businesses and demand a job, and not take government gibs, which is tax money that has been extracted by oppressing people who work low salary jobs.

Of course you are unemployed then, you're working for free for big businesses and letting the tax payer pay for your upkeep! Why would they hire you when they get your labour for free?

That's the evil of open source.