Leave it to an Intel fan to flip the slowdowns with Intel hardware into a snipe against AMD. Really?? You're wishing a product was less secure so it could run a little faster, but still essentially be broken? I guess Intel really is the right product for you.

Focusing on it to the exclusion of all else (even sometimes their own benefit) is the problem. Of course businesses exist to make profit. But they can play fair as well as anyone else can. They just often choose not to. That's the part that annoys me.

In my 20+ years of dealing with business owners, I've never met a more whiny, self-entitled bunch of douches. I've had bidders on a project automatically file suit if they didn't get a bid. No reason for it; they've told me directly that after losing they automatically sue, just par for the course. In my local municipal area, there a businesses suing the city council because (extremely necessary) road construction was being done, and they feel they lost money because of it. And forget about closing down during a huge snowstorm; they have to remain open on the 1% chance that someone will come in, afraid of losing that one potential customer to another store (no matter how dangerous it is to keep the store open).

Without exception, every business owner I've encountered thinks theirs is the only one that matters; people, environment, circumstances be damned. No matter what happens, it's all about 'muh profits'. So it's not surprising that businesses are very much against competition; they all want a monopoly if they could get it.

So what C really needs to be absolutely perfect is to become C++? Well then just use C++. And I say this as a C++ developer. It makes no sense to me when people are using C, and keep re-implementing the functionality of C++ (poorly) without just moving to C++ directly.

So you hope that AMD lowers prices on their GPU so that it forces Nvidia to do the same, then you will reward Nvidia by buying their hardware? Why would AMD (note, it's no longer ATI) do this? Why drop their prices and _still_ not be rewarded for it??

People like you are the reason that Nvidia cards are $800+ dollars. You will pay whatever price that Nvidia (and Intel) demands, and then wonder why the prices are so high.

What's wrong with wanting to share, but sometimes wanting a little quid pro quo too? Are you following the absolute letter of the licensing by not doing anything in return? Yes. Are you following the intent? No, probably not. While there's no strict obligation to do anything, if you like the project and would like to see it continue, then perhaps (even for your own self-interest) you might consider doing something about it. A bug report, code contribution, small monetary contribution, etc. Hell, even a word of thanks here and there would be nice.

Your strict interpretation of how this works reminds me of a person that wouldn't hold the door for someone. Are you legally required to hold open a door for someone? No, of course not. But that doesn't mean the person behind you won't think you're a proper prick if you let the door slam shut in their face. Of course your response would be "but I didn't have to do that for you."

Why not consider the letter of an agreement vs. the intent of an agreement? And maybe think ahead for more than 5 minutes and realize that if everyone treats FOSS developers like that, eventually there won't be any. And that will hurt you just as much as the developer.

Yes, unfortunately that is a valid complaint too. I try not to do it personally, but I can see that if a developer is approaching burnout then they can resort to doing this. And it's then a self-perpetuating spiral that usually ends badly.

And this is exactly the type of ass-hattery that I spoke of, that leads people to eventually quit a project.

Congrats for being a perfect example of all that is wrong with volunteerism.

I've been working on a project for almost 20 years at this point, and I definitely feel the same as what's reported here. As the project has gotten more popular and more users come on board, there is now much more demand on our team. And some companies have noticed the usefulness of the project and used it in commercial products. Not that I'm against that (as that's what the GPL basically encourages), but it would be nice at times if there was more contributions back from those that benefit from it.

And I don't necessarily mean money either. Extra help in coding, testing, etc would be nice too. But I suspect that people get used to a product being free, and then asking for anything more once it becomes popular is out of the question for them. But in the long run, it really leads to developer burnout, as more people want more and more, and can't (or won't) contribute. I know I am personally feeling the burden and looking at burnout soon.

Anyway, long story short; I can sympathize with developers in a similar situation.