Clarification

[squatchnbeer]

So, to use WIX Toolset I must pay the maintenance fee. It does NOT guarantee me a fix to a problem, or anything else. Just "funds" support. I can download the source and compile it myself, but I cannot use google to find ideas and help with issues. I am required to pay the fee to do that. I've been in this for a long time. I saw the beginning of open source. Free as in beer, free as in not closed. I saw that "maintainers" signed up to help because they wanted to, not because of money. I wonder why they would commit the time, but hey its their time and they enjoy it. This is the small step down the slipper slope in my opinion. I'm sure if the licensing didn't forbid it, that the code would be behind a paywall so the developers can get paid for all the stress of developing.

[robmen]

@squatchnbeer you didn't ask a question, so I'm not exactly sure what you are looking for in this Discussion. However, a few of your statements aren't quite correct. They may indicate that some clarification is needed on the site if others reach similar incorrect conclusions.

First, you only must pay a maintenance fee if you use the binaries provided by the project (like the WiX Toolset in this case) to make money. You can use the binaries in your personal endeavours. Of course, you can also build everything from source.

Second, you can absolutely use Google to read all the issues, the code, and everything related to the project. You can also submit pull requests to the WiX Toolset without paying the fee. So it is absolutely possible to help out.

Free as in beer, free as in not closed.

You got that quote a little bit backward, and the order is important. The correct order is "Free as in speech, not free as in beer." From the FSF site:

... “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 
“free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing 
the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.

You may have paid money to get copies of a free program, or you may have obtained copies at 
no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and 
change the software, even to sell copies.

I saw that "maintainers" signed up to help because they wanted to, not because of money.

I can't speak for all maintainers, but the ones I have talked to signed up because they built something they thought was cool. Then a bunch of other people thought it was cool, too. And then a bunch of companies found it useful, as well. Unfortunately, as described on the Open Source Maintenance Fee site, successful projects end up requiring a lot of maintenance simply to keep them running smoothly. No maintainer I know signed up to be a maintainer just to do those tasks, even though they do take a significant amount of time.

And if you choose not to pay the maintenance fee, then you get to experience the maintenance tasks yourself. 😄