This means, of course, that the public must bear the burden of supporting them. This is almost always bourne unevenly; there is a small community (a tiny slice of the public) that cares passionately enough to do the work.

Open source works at the moment because large companies have a vested interest in software infrastructure (Google, Oracle, IBM, and yes even Microsoft) and they supply the bucks to back the passion.

But they also form part of the software consuming public.

Someone, somewhere, has spent time/energy/resources to develop/maintain/patch open source software.

It behooves the rest of us mere users to provide community support wherever/whenever we can.