Forgive me but this part of the open source and foss confuses me. If you code and release an open source and free piece of software like say, a robust video player such as VLC, how is that dev being paid?
Because in my eyes (I’m not too privy to FOSS ins and outs)
I’m basically getting your software for free of no charge, it IS free as in free beer cos you’re not asking ME to pay it for so who is paying YOU?
Does it come via donations or wealthy corporations like Red Hat and Microsoft pay or fund open sourced projects that is given to the hard working developers of that OSS/FOSS project?
depends on the project. Some projects are spun out from major corporations. Others are one dude making a thing and it gets used everywhere and taken over by venture capital firms.
Some projects will have sponsorship, there are also government grants they can get, but I would say most comes from regular users doing reoccurring dontations.