Or would have asked. That may be true for a small number of programmers, but it's clearly false for most. It's developed for internal use by programmers in the IT department, or it's written under contract for a corporate client, or it's written to drive a piece of custom hardware such as a disk drive, a microwave oven or a network hub. In none of these cases do programmers' salaries depend upon the purchase price of the software they write. If programmers' salaries were based upon the direct revenue that comes from selling the code they produce, then the programmers who did this work would go hungry.
Programmers receive salaries because of the operational value of the software they produce.
The software helps others within the company do their jobs, so it's treated as overhead like the electric bill and the office rent. Or it's part of a product or service, like an e-commerce site or the deliverables to a consulting client, in which case it's treated as a cost of goods sold. Nonetheless, it is clearly true that businesses employ programmers and pay their salaries. Open-source revolutionaries insist that it often makes solid business sense for employers to release that source code, which they have paid for, to the world at no cost. This company has three alternatives.