The only thing larger that nerd's head is his ego
Sorry but I don't get it (or missed your point). Is it a sin to want to earn money with your work? If someone wants to sell his work/time, he's free to do so. If you don't like it, simply don't buy!
I once proposed to someone if he would be willing to sponsor a bug. His answer was "but is the code not Open Source?". Well Open Source does not mean free debugging/fixing/consultancy! *You* are responsible for fixing the bugs *you* want to be fixed, nobody else. Needless to say that the bug is still there.
Don't get me wrong, Open Source is fine and a rewarding experience. Working with other developers worldwide is especially very gratifying. But many (not all of course) users think that Open Source is the Great Mall of software: you can download everything for free without giving anything in return.
Do you think I'm wrong? Let's take Xindice for example.
Users are posting questions but only *very few* offered something in return (code or documentation). What about "Thank you for the answer. BTW I've written this paragraph (my problem/solution) that you can add to the documentation/faq." Instead it's more "I have this problem, please fix it", "the documentation sucks", "it's a shame you are not supporting xyz"... Of course not every mail is like that but you tend to remember the bad ones.
If you're a developer, the only thing you want is the code. And if you have written the code, you don't need documentation nor hotline/mailing list. So if you want to earn money with either code, documentation or hotline, I'm fine with it. And you're always free not to buy.
-Vladimir
-- Vladimir R. Bossicard www.bossicard.com
