The whole rant against "free" software is just a straw man--the movement he decries as a cult against charging for software isn't about that at all. The whole idea lies in freedom: the "free as in beer" "free" is the Java to the movements JavaScript. The name is an unfortunate artifact of the English language.
Additionally, it's pretty clearly not an outright lie: you only have to look at the successful ecosystem of free/open source software, and the companies which live on it, to see that it does work. Perhaps it is an exaggeration, but it is no lie.
I'll buy freedom. I buy an arudino and android, and a thing-o-matic though I couldn't afford a thing-o-matic on my earning right now.
When push come to shove, I'll probably stays on android even if the world around me all use iphone just like I use archlinux everyday. Granted, I am in the minority.
Go for a reprap instead. We're much more open-dev and organic (organic is the nicer way of saying chaotic and disorganized I guess). Which continent are you on?
I think it is just because the rant is in response to a strawman who is asking the question. They haven't really looked into free software as an alternative to proprietary software and it really is a shift in thinking about software. It is exactly the kind of response I'd expect from someone who makes their living off of proprietary software and gets ``attacked'' by the RMSes of the world.
It certainly seems like a lie if you use Microsoft Windows and iOS day-in and day-out and account for the free software which does exist by pointing out companies with alternative business models (Red Hat's support business, Google's search/advertising, etc). Then the only unexplained pieces left are those which are run by community (Debian, Apache, etc) and that can be handwaved away by people who donate to those projects or the developers have full-time ``real'' jobs which involves proprietary software. If one explains the existence of free software to themselves in this manner, than all free software requires the proprietary software side to pay developers and thus it is a myth in the sense that one can't have software without some level of proprietary software in the world. These are [likely] inaccurate explanations, but somewhat similar to the author's POV as far as I can tell.
If English didn't have this silly artifact, then the response would be about ridiculing how essentially zero people who use their apps would have any use for the source code so it is ok to keep it from them. Regardless, the point of free software is lost and the developer just doesn't want to be pestered by the RMSes of the world. Similar to how the developer doesn't want to be pestered by people who like to share software and think it does no harm. And not to be pestered by people who assume that s/he is rolling around in money.
How then do you suggest this guy to make money? 'Sell support' on his 2$ weather app that nobody would even look at if it was so hard to use that users would need support? Put ads in it and fight the Adblocker crowd? Find a rich benefactor who wants to 'sponsor' him? I'm running out of options here, what do you suggest?
To be entirely fair, he isn't exactly making money hand over fist now either. It seems assuming that somebody should make money off something as trivial as a weather app isn't necessarily warranted.
However, there is actually a way he could have made money: if somebody wanted a weather app, they could have hired him to write it. This could plausibly either be a carrier seeking to make their phone more attractive or whatever service provides the weather data seeking to make it more accessible. On the one hand, the amount he could possibly make from something like this is limited; on the other hand, the risk is also limited.
The problem with your argument is that you're starting with the assumption that a weather app--particularly one which, I assume, does not get its own data--should be worth a significant amount of money. Just because it would not necessarily be practical to sell the app does not me it would be impractical to make a living as a programmer.
So let me summarize: the guy says not all software should be free and that he wants to make money, you dismiss it with 'oh he's just stuck in old ways of thinking and he should find other ways to make money', I ask how, and then you say maybe he just shouldn't make money at all? That's just putting the cart before the horse - starting at a fundamentalist position and coming to conclusions that are completely out of whack with reality.
Nobody will pay the 15k or whatever it costs to have a custom app developed just for a weather app, even if people find it useful. So, the traditional (and common sense) model was to split the costs over all people who would be interested in such an app. The developer would take the risk, develop and market it, and people would pay for it; and once the development costs were covered, the profit was for the developer. Simple and, if I may say, quite reasonable.
But now you come and start with an assumption that the app should be free, then the business becomes untenable and the app won't be developed in the first place, and you say that maybe that's how it's supposed to be? How does that make sense?
I think you are willfully misrepresenting my arguments. First, my initial post had two points: one, his argument is entirely fallacious and two, free software can and does work. I never claimed anything about all software having to be free or even that "he's stuck in old ways of thinking..." (which really sounds like a personal attack more than anything).
Secondly, my point about money was based on the fact that, in the same article, he admitted to being in the red. If he is losing money on this model, the assumption that any reasonable model will lead to his making money is unwarranted.
Finally, I don't see why nobody would pay to have a weather app. Plenty of companies give such things away for free right now; I see no reason it would not be carried over to Android. For an example, just search for "weather" on Google. While this is not open source, it is free so from an economic stand-point it is almost equivalent. Additionally, I could definitely see somebody like Samsung funding this in order to add a "feature" to their phone. Besides, there are actually several free and open source weather widgets for KDE, so it's clearly practical to have them.
On a completely unrelated note, there really seems to be something about the free software movement that engenders straw man arguments. Perhaps some of its supporters are too zealous, or maybe the arguments behind it are insufficiently clear. Or maybe it's just that most people don't really understand what it's all about.
The current model is rather indirect. The author spends x amount of time developing the app and then they release it. Not until he has y downloads will he have recouped his initial development costs and he will continue to earn money well past the mark of y downloads.
I think selling upgrades to apps would partially help, as it would encourage updates due to the possibility of recouping the costs from an existing customer base as well as allow the app to meet multiple points along a price/functionality curve.
They could release source code and sell it anyways. The problem there is that someone else could compile it and sell it on the app store to undercut him. I'm not sure what kind of recourse (if any) the developer would have in such a situation, thus I doubt releasing source is viable.
The rich benefactor idea is clearly in jest, since such arrangements are rare. Yet, corporations pay people to work on open source code. As long as the business can get their value out of a piece of software and it isn't core to their business model, there is very little reason why the code shouldn't be able to be open.
Regardless, I don't think the indie developer cares about software freedom, they just don't want to be pestered by free software advocates. They don't see anything wrong with their business model so even if there was an alternative (and there is very little in the way of alternatives except to look for customers to pay and then develop the app instead of the other way around), I doubt this indie developer would care.
you only have to look at the successful ecosystem of free/open source software
I'm not going to say that the free/open source software ecosystem is not successful, but I will say it is orders of magnitude less successful that commercial software.
Additionally, it's pretty clearly not an outright lie: you only have to look at the successful ecosystem of free/open source software, and the companies which live on it, to see that it does work. Perhaps it is an exaggeration, but it is no lie.