this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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I know a lot of tech people in my area and a lot of them are furries.
It's weird how sharply split they are between (potential) comrades
and some extreme chuds, though. 
I usually just ask them if they believe that all software should be libre. If they say some bs about people needing to get paid then it's safe to say you've lost them.
I enjoy my open source work, and if I had the means I would only do open source work, but I can't in today's society. Doesn't mean I don't believe all software should be free, but in how society today is I wouldn't be able to pay for the means to sustain myself and those close to me.
Donations really only go so far and some of the projects I've contributed to are too niche to survive on those :/
I always license my personal projects as free for whoever wants to use it free and wants to contribute back. It's never free for commercial entities though because screw them profiting off of my free labour.
With this, would you still think I'm lost? Or is there some nuance that could be applied if I responded with both wanting all software up be FOSS, but also that I need to have the means to support those around me.
If you license your software in a way that has exceptions for certain groups, that license is not a libre software license. If I'm reading this correctly, you just have proprietary software. Corporations cannot be treated differently than individuals, it violates the GPLv3 and other free software licenses recognized by the FSF. Also shame on you for saying "free labour." Creating free software is not tied to "getting free labour," your labour was not gratis.
And then:
If the only way to obtain a good standard of living is to restrict people's freedom and hoard software, than the society itself is broken and unsustainable. But of course, your use of "society" is a way (intentionally or not) to deflect from the ongoing robbery of computer science leadered by the most parastic and compulsive hoarders and control freaks in your country.
This isn't the "oh so mature" gotcha moment. Nor is the "nuance" you suppose meaningful. James Gosling (the java inventor and one of the principal engineers at Amazon) makes the same tired cliché "argument.". A mega millionaire gives the same "feed my kids" that you do.
Yes, you are lost. You've admitted to creating nonfree software and parrot talking points used to derail the discussion to your own emotions (which are also by and large a product of nonfree anti-sharing culture being the default).
Dual license exists and is fully GPLv3 complaint. I don't see why I'd allow corporations who will profit of my work, to enjoy the fruits of free labour, but you are free (hehe) to have a differing opinion there. Also, most of my licenses are AGPLv3 due to the networked capabilities of that license.
In what way was it not free? If I contributed to the GNU project, and I received nothing in return, what part of that isn't free? I provided my labour for free, and signed the rights away to the license of the FOSS project.
This is something I, as an individual, cannot change. I can push societal change, but for now, we both (you as well) have to sell labour to survive. I assume you have a means of income yourself, so I assume you are breaking your principle as well.
I am not a mega millionaire.. I'm someone who owns no house, but I do have a family, a mother with a disability that cannot work, a boyfriend who is unemployed, a pet who has to have surgery, and so I do need to provide for them. If that makes me your enemy, then so is every factory worker out there.
If needing to support my family means I'm lost, then I will wander forever. I can only guess you have enough money to not need to worry about the realities of surviving in a capitalist society as I there's no alternative to you owning the means to get online on an electronic device, without the means to pay for that.
So do you work, or are you rich? Because that's the only possibility here if you practice what you preach and aren't "selling your programming skills". I'd guess you have to be rich then.
Thanks for responding, enforced material hardship under a capitalist class will limit you from contributing to free software. And I know retrospectively that I shouldn't of been so antagonistic.
I should have been more tactful, I am a university student who's not looking to go into software development and come from a bangladeshi working class immigrant background (second gen), so your remarks about needing to sell your labour are undeniable from me. I don't want to attack you but I want to push back on the narrative you've told me.
My main point was that there does not need to exist a nuance between "the people who believe all software should be libre" and the people who believe more or less the same thing but are coerced into creating nonfree software. We are both victims here of the same system.
I do not agree with dual licensing or "shareware." But if that's what you use then I can't change that for you. We likely don't even disagree on much past that.
What I do want to push back on is the idea that libre software is undermined at all by our own material realities, the opposite is true. My point with the James Gosling comment is that libre software does not claim anything other than the rights of computer users. It doesn't give us a blueprint of how to effect this system nor should it. Everyone should have equal rignts to computer science. Capitalism, thus, is incompatible with this ideal. We agree on this and this doesn't make you any more or any less of an adherent for free software and vice versa for me.
Non-software engineers can perpetuate nonfree software as well. I am not immune to this.
Should all software be libre? The answer is yes from both of us. There doesn't need to be a caveat.