It's interesting to me that the actual motivations for releasing code open-source were very different than I had assumed for the past ~30 years. I always liked to give stuff away so folks could play with and try stuff. As far as I can tell, the only reason not to still give away code is the desire for credit, which was never all that interesting to me.
But then again, I haven't devoted my life to developing and releasing a huge open source project used by millions, so perhaps my opinion should be discounted accordingly.
No, I don't think your opinion should be discounted. It just turns out that a bulk of open-source movement had ulterior motives, and were actually in this for credit or downstream opportunities, not to actually give things away in a pay-it-forward fashion.
The reaction to LLMs pretty clearly revealed who was giving things away, and who was indirectly selling them and using "giving away" for unfair advantage.
Wow you're really "irked" by the existence of people writing software for reasons you apparently cannot comprehend, aren't you?
BTW, you mentioned "pay it forward" -- please explain me how an LLM user no longer interacting with other humans, is going to "pay it forward".
I dunno what "irks" you, what's your problem, who mistreated you so badly that you have to be so condescending and attributing malice to people whose motivations you have absolutely no clue about.