[$] The things nobody wants to pay for

The free-software community has managed to build a body of software that isworth, by most estimates, many billions of dollars; all of this code isfreely available to anybody who wants to use or modify it. It is anunparalleled example of independent actors working cooperatively on acommon resource. Free software is certainly a success story, but all isnot perfect. One of the community's greatest strengths - convincingcompanies to contribute to this common resource - is also part of one ofits biggest weaknesses.