I understand the feeling. There is a huge asymmetry between individual contributors and huge profitable companies.
But I think a frame shift that might help is that you're not actually donating your time to LMAX (or whoever). You're instead contributing to make software that you've already benefited from become better. Any open source library represents many multiple developer-years that you've benefited from and are using for free. When you contribute back, you're participating in an exchange that started when you first used their library, not making a one-way donation.
> They wouldn't have merged my code in if they didn't think it had some amount of value, and if they think it has value then they should pay me.
This can easily be flipped: you wouldn't have contributed if their software didn't add value to your life first and so you should pay them to use Disruptor.
Neither framing quite captures what's happening. You're not in an exchange with LMAX but maintaining a commons you're already part of. You wouldn't feel taken advantage of when you reshelve a book properly at a public library so why feel bad about this?
But I think a frame shift that might help is that you're not actually donating your time to LMAX (or whoever). You're instead contributing to make software that you've already benefited from become better. Any open source library represents many multiple developer-years that you've benefited from and are using for free. When you contribute back, you're participating in an exchange that started when you first used their library, not making a one-way donation.
> They wouldn't have merged my code in if they didn't think it had some amount of value, and if they think it has value then they should pay me.
This can easily be flipped: you wouldn't have contributed if their software didn't add value to your life first and so you should pay them to use Disruptor.
Neither framing quite captures what's happening. You're not in an exchange with LMAX but maintaining a commons you're already part of. You wouldn't feel taken advantage of when you reshelve a book properly at a public library so why feel bad about this?