The original said:
"Programming is only 'free' if your time is worthless."
We agree that one's time is not worthless, so applying the propositional calculus (there is a fancy Latin name for this particular rule of deduction[0]) we can take the contra-positive and get:
Your time is not worthless, therefore programming is not "free".
So ... regardless of whether we have to pay for compilers or compute time or anything else, programming is not free.
Ever.
In the context of the original thread this isn't necessarily helpful, or even necessarily relevant, but it is certainly true.
[0] Modus Tollens
2/n
CC: Σ(i³) = (Σi)² (npub1kgl…pskh)
