no, this is not so black & white. Lets take it in two parts 'Free' and 'Open Source'. One use of Open Source is to participate in science; define, expand, fork, integrate, extend. A different use of 'Free' is to become the standard upon which the infrastructure depends; hard game, but big results.
One author may steer or originate, but over time, Free and Open Source, is the work of many authors, many architectural components, and many network nodes.
Said another way, to understand the motivations of Free and Open Source, one must be able to see beyond one author, to the effects on systems, and systems of systems. Much of the benefits of both Free and Open Source, are not mainly to one author, but to systems, and over time.
This is important, as much of basic computing would not exist as it is now, except for sacrifice and insights by earlier authors and teams.
One author may steer or originate, but over time, Free and Open Source, is the work of many authors, many architectural components, and many network nodes.
Said another way, to understand the motivations of Free and Open Source, one must be able to see beyond one author, to the effects on systems, and systems of systems. Much of the benefits of both Free and Open Source, are not mainly to one author, but to systems, and over time.
This is important, as much of basic computing would not exist as it is now, except for sacrifice and insights by earlier authors and teams.