I think our ancestors would be aghast at our legal system that has outlawed the propagation of culture and knowledge without paying tariffs to whoever "owns" the relevant ideas.

One glance at how much censorship there was historically, especially after the invention of the printing press; and I think you'll find this notion rather fanciful.

This reads like "eat your dinner; there are starving kids in <FOREIGN COUNTRY>" which hints at a valid point but even the toddlers know isn't a good argument.

Calling people greedy solely because "it could be worse" is rude and misanthropic. Calling them greedy for wanting a bounty-funded, community contribution to be merged into the community version not just the paywall version is ridiculous to me. Maybe the "shocking revelation" about the open source community is how easily some turn to corporate bootlicking.

My rant was in general, not against this specific issue, just as I believe the OP's post is. Yeah, taking advantage of volunteer work, not a great thing even if legal.

On the other hand, the unsympathetic side of me says, "That's the license; those are the rules of the game which everyone voluntarily agreed to; and you don't have to like how some people play the game."

There's no place in FOSS licenses for "Rule #7: Don't do anything that isn't nice."

> My rant was general, not against this specific issue

Sure, and the comment you're replying to also explained the error in your argument in general. Being privileged and exploited are not mutually exclusive. "those are the rules of the game" is not very far from saying "everything that is possible is fair". It's the logic of a bully.