Yes, and we have not actually what we paid for S2. Considering that S2 is a full version, the current one is not, rather S1.X or something, even though it says S2 Alpha. I'm not complaining, just saying that people can't really complain if they bought S3 before they even had S2. It's taking risks; as Indiana said, the devs could be put in jail for whatever reason tomorrow and people would most likely never see that money back or S3 at all.
That said, I'm the first one to complain of the way Scavierge (good insight, Tristan :tilt
work, but I understand that we can't change it, just give opinions hoping that one day they will change things. Also, as Vykos said, the developpment is absolutly not related to money. What would you want them to do? Produce faster because they're richer? No... what people would want them to do is hire somebody else to help doing LFS, which is not going to happen because they just don't want to.
Also, appart from a few people that have helped in the development of LFS, they have never accepted donations of any kind, would it be money or work. If you go asking them if you can help Scawen or Eric, they'll most likely not answer. The only time it happens is when they need help with something side-related to LFS like websites, or when something really outstanding that creates a general cheer in the community comes up (DaveWS' sound pack that becomes official).
As for the question of who owns what, they indeed own it, and we're allowed to use it. Considering that LFS is 95% multiplayer and 5% hotlapping (and hotlapping is only interesting if you compare your times with others, so it can actually be considered multiplayer, it looses all it's sense without a database of times), if the LFS Mserver died, LFS would simply die. So we own the right to play, only. Other games, where you play in single player, you own the finished product, but not the code of it. You own the CD, but not the information contained on it.
Another thing, we can count ourselves lucky that LFS is actually not completed and actually not as popular as some other games. If it was the case, Scawen would most likely have no choice but to create patches on a more regular basis or he'd lose everybody, and we'd most likely have to pay to get the best servers possible, and continuous updates. In some ways, LFS is very similar to MMO, it IS a MMO, but not as massive as other games, something we should be grateful for up to a certain point (there's a balance to achieve between having people to play with and a game that becomes over-populated, inevitably falling in some kind of money making pattern).