---
link: https://openpath.chadwhitacre.com/2024/open-source-is-a-restaurant/
tags:
  - article
  - opensource
author:
  - Chad Whitacre
---
[[Chad Whitacre]] makes a great analogy around when/how software gets paid for, vs food.

> Open Source is a **restaurant**. At a restaurant, you eat your meal _first_, and _then_ you are expected to pay for it. Yes, we could dine and dash. But we don’t. When presented with a tab for a meal we have just eaten, we pay the tab.

* Open source is not a grocery: pay first, and then eat the food
* Open source is not a soup kitchen: not donations or charity -- it's not someone else eating the meal, you ate it