Alt text; An image showing a meme about open source software. The top part shows an elephant standing on a beach with text reading “The entire world’s IT infrastructure” superimposed on the elephant. Below this is a large, colorful beach ball being supported by tiny ants, with text reading “Unpaid open source devs.” The meme illustrates how the global IT ecosystem heavily relies on open source software that is often maintained by unpaid volunteer developers who carry a disproportionate burden despite their small numbers.
The problem is the people who use the library don’t have access to the money. They’re just some dev trying to build something and your library is one of their 500 dependencies. The idea of needing to pay for a license means they have to stop building and get other people involved who may or may not approve, which may not be an option if they have a deadline. They will probably just try to find some work around to avoid this.
I wonder if a better approach is to move hundreds of libraries into some kind of joint bundle (a humble bundle). Let companies buy access to them all with one procurement, and also you’ll have more negotiating power and pull if you have a bigger group.