Why are open source applications free – even on commercial distributions like Ubuntu? Why do developers put in so much work without getting paid?
The questions were asked on DistroWatch and below are the answer from Jesse Smith: 
“Reading this question made me sad, as it reminded me of how much our culture has been poisoned by commercial software companies, along with their propaganda. The question suggests that the norm is for developers to create software with the intention of selling it, and that there is no benefit other than making money. In the culture of software development, the opposite is usually true.
For most of the history of modern computing, it was quite common for software developers to share their creations (often along with the source code) for free. There are a number of reasons for this. Some developers are academics and share their code in the same way that other academics publish their papers and share methodologies. Other developers want to solve a problem that will be easier with many participants. Such efforts include creating a large application (like LibreOffice ), defining a new standard (like Wayland or X11), or coordinating multiple nodes (as is the case with network time synchronization). There are other reasons why developers might publish their code for free, from demonstrating their skills, a desire to improve humanity, or simply creating something for the joy of creating.
Whatever the motivation, it has historically been common for software creators to share their creations with others, either publicly or with their colleagues. Commercial software, while it has existed, has not necessarily been the place where interesting, capable, or fun programs have come from. The GNU userspace and compiler, BSD, MINIX, Linux , and X11 all emerged from a culture of open development and from developers freely sharing their source code. Often, even when commercial software was available, the software itself was not necessarily what was being sold. Often, it was the support for the software (and the systems it ran on) that was being sold. Linux companies such as Canonical, Red Hat, and SUSE have continued this practice of selling support rather than focusing on selling specific applications.
These days, it’s common for companies to present software as a commodity, something that needs to be developed, packaged with hype, and sold at a premium as something rare. Companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft add unwanted features to their platforms in an attempt to make it seem like they’re creating something of value that people should buy. They’d like you to forget (or not know) that they spend millions of dollars to give a shiny image to software and its capabilities, something that thousands of developers around the world can develop and share for free.
Why do open source developers do what they do? Because they can, because it's useful to people, because it's fun, because it's interesting, because they like to show the world what they can do, because programming is an enjoyable creative outlet, because they want to be in control of their systems.
Because they don't want a company to overcharge for a product and then stop supporting it when they want to sell the next version."
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
Correct……