It appears to me that this thread seems to be designed to stir up some controversy. The OP has posted it both on FB and now here whilst not being a developer themselves. I would be more comfortable if such a thread had actually been started by a developer.
Having said that, some interesting issues have been raised. Splitting the library is a terrible idea from a user standpoint. I think @vega made some good points though. if Rack Pro is advertising the size of the free library as a selling point, then I hadn’t really considered that before. If we only developed free modules then that might bother me more than it does. But as we also develop a commercial module, then the more users Rack can get, the more we will be likely to sell. In general I can see Rack development becoming more commercial over time I think, as it becomes potentially more viable due to the larger audience.
I have to say I LOVE using the VST, it’s an absolute game changer. I think Andrew was very wise to give every developer a free copy - there would have probably been a shit-storm of biblical proportions if devs had been expected to pay for the privilege of using their own free software in the VST!
I really felt for @synthi when he was getting moaned at by newbies “because they’d paid $99 for this!” - no they damn well hadn’t - and this is perhaps the thing I feel strongest about. I think VCV needs to make it as clear as they possibly can about what people are paying for, and what they are not. And this comes back to the advertising of ‘over 2000’ modules thing. If people think they are paying for a library of over 2000 modules, then if there’s a problem with one of those plugins, they feel they have a right to complain about it. So the developer gets these entitled complaints from people because there are some issues on day 1 with the 150 modules they code, maintain and offer up for FREE. And which they had to spend days working on solely to support the VST, from which they receive no benefit at all. There definitely IS something wrong with that.
Over the last few years there has been a great culture of respect, patience and gratitude between the users of VCV and the developers of FOSS plugins. That needs to be carefully nurtured and protected and VCV should consider how best to inform and educate these new VST users about the way things work round here. Otherwise I think there is a very good chance some developers will just throw in the towel because they simply don’t need this kind of grief from entitled people, who feel they have paid for the right to complain, when there is no benefit in it at all for them.