as for freeware, there are mechanisms for making a profit, but this is too complex for me to expound upon here (i don't care enough to write 2-3 pages explaining the economics and marketing of software). but rest assured, freeware is developed to turn a product ... eventually. there are very few developers that spend large swags of their life writing code for narcissistic reasons, or for the joy of it. heheh.
falkin is just another fork that will end. it was qupzilla. qupzilla was discontinued because it couldn't make money. the project died. falkin will die too, if it can't make money. qupzilla was pulled out of the discontinued storage bin and dusted off by a new developer that is business-minded. he is going to use it on his resume to get a high paying job, or he has plans to grow it and shift it into a revenue stream to make a living off it, or to supplement his income.
You highlight a very important aspect of "free software" and it's one that is often forgotten/ignored. Free software is great, don't get me wrong, I mean you can't argue with free. The problem is that it's not always sustainable. Unless they are getting money through ad's, another full time job, sponsors, donations, etc...developers need to make money. I'm not talking about being extremely rich type of money, they just need money to live like everyone else.
A lot of free software starts out for the fun of it. Over time either the developer(s) slow down with updating the software, or they just stop completely. Hence why there are many forks with open source software, it's mostly because the developer stopped developing it, so someone picks it up and continues on, until the cycle continues. While I agree that free software CAN be done, it doesn't mean that a developer cannot charge for it, especially if they want to make it their full time job. Linux is a great example, many major distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, PopOS, etc...) are largely funded by other companies, or sponsors. Fedora is paid for by Red Hat which makes money in the enterprise, Ubuntu is paid for by Canonical, and PopOS is paid for by System 76 which builds and sells Linux computers. So while free, they have income coming in that allows it to be free.
Another great example is No Virus Thanks. He makes a ton and I mean a ton of great free software. Its clear he makes money through projects he works on for businesses and enterprises, so obviously a lot of his time will be spent there. While his free offerings are great, when was the last time we seen any updates to them?? Nothing against him whats so ever, I know he will return and develop them again, but it just goes to show that free isn't always great. Eventually things will either slow down, or stop entirely.
