I'm curious - do you actually think that there are people reading Hacker news that don't know about these projects?

Obviously I, and everyone else here, is aware of them, which should have clued you in that you had misread me. I didn't say that no-one will develop software for free, I said that I don't do it, and that I suspect that I'm far from unique.

Besides, if you look, you'll discover that many of the developers on those projects are getting paid for it, one way or another.