Good for him. Glad he poked the hornet’s nest, and brought the problem into the forefront.

It’s another example of “tragedy of the commons.” Everyone gets to use it, but no one has to pay for it, so eventually it gets destroyed.

We’re using a metered paywall on our site, and it has worked well. Perhaps the same concept could be included in open source, even the dependent pieces. “Feel free to use this to see if it works. After X number of calls, though, it will start doing Y thing.”

I don’t know — I’m not a developer any more (just a writer, editor, and publisher). So perhaps it’s a bad idea. But I can guarantee that an economy with all take and no give is also a bad idea. (See: “tragedy of the commons”)