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So I went to their main page to download an ISO to give it a try in a VM. They hid the download button really well: You have to type in "0" into the "how much

So I went to their main page to download an ISO to give it a try in a VM. They hid the download button really well: You have to type in "0" into the "how much you'd like to pay" field for the "Purchase" button to change to "Download". I mean I understand that open source projects need funding. But if you want people to try your niche OS at least make it obvious how to download it. Ask for money later after people had to chance to try it out. I only typed in 0 because I know that "trick" from other websites. If I hadn't known I would have just left the website and would possibly never return.

toyg 10y ago
This is a long-standing criticism of Elementary. I think they initially didn't even provide a way to get a free download, and eventually settled for the current UI. Basically the founder-owner is adamant that someone has to pay for his time, and tbh I don't begrudge him.
- kybernetyk 10y ago
  Oh, I don't begrudge him either. I run a small software company myself. We're selling our software on the internet. But our website focuses on getting people to download the free trial first. The "asking for money" is then done once the trial period ends. It's already hard to get people to download your stuff for free. With obviously visible download buttons. If we did what Elementary is doing we would be closing our shop rather soon.
  - embik 10y ago
    As far as I know the GPL does not allow trial periods and asking for money later on, but feel free to correct me. That's why elementary cannot do such a thing.
    - teddyh 10y ago
      If Elementary wants to alter some program to add a time bomb, the GPL cannot stop them. The GPL only ensures that the user can take the time bomb out (either by themselves or by following instructions on the internet, or by hiring somebody to do it).
    - acomar 10y ago
      GPL just requires source to be available to anyone who receives the binary. It has to be available on request. You can ask them to pay for the cost of postage to ship it to them.
      - toyg 10y ago
        Hell, you can ask them to pay anything, like RedHat does, regardless of costs. It's perfectly legal and GPL-compliant. You just have to provide sources.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - paulryanrogers 10y ago
      GPL doesn't prohibit payment. It just implicitly undercuts payment because the first to pay can redistribute for less or nothing. Yet some projects still squeak out some money: Synergy, DOSBox Turbo, etc.
    - mohanmcgeek 10y ago
      No. Gpl has no such thing. But you'll have to provide the source code with your software, so I'll just modify the source to give myself infinite trial. _that's why it won't work_
      - mikeash 10y ago
        It'll work, it just won't get quite as many conversions as it might otherwise. The same principle applies to closed-source software, after all: you have to provide the binary, so I'll just modify the binary to give myself an infinite trial. This is entirely doable, but enough people still pay to make it a viable business in many cases.
      - Damogran6 10y ago
        The number of people that would bother to do that is relatively small. If it's a good product, and reasonably priced, people would much rather just pay to have it. (See music streaming.)
    - pmontra 10y ago
      The GPL and payment are orthogonal. They could GPL a piece of software that stops working after 30 days if you don't pay. You decide if to compile out the code that checks for the payment (and possibly distribute your version) or pay them those money.
      - holri 10y ago
        If it stops working it violates the GPL: Freedom 0: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose."
        pmontra 10y ago
        You have the code, so you can run it as you wish. Does this line make a program un-GPL? exit(0) if Time.now > Time.new(2016,11,15,0,0,0)
        holri 10y ago
        yes, because you can start it again. If it destroys itself it is un-GPL
    - kybernetyk 10y ago
      No, I didn't mean a trial version. I just suggested they should ask for a donation once people actually had the chance to find out if they'd consider donating worth it.
- endisukaj 10y ago
  Considering how Elementary is a skin on top of Ubuntu with some shiny icons and animations... No thank you, I'd rather use Mint or Ubuntu if I want an easy distro.
  - matzipan 10y ago
    elementary OS has evolved a lot from just a simple skin on top of Ubuntu. You can see here [1] all the projects which are maintained by the team. [1] https://launchpad.net/elementary https://launchpad.net/elementary
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    It is progressively becoming quite more than a simple skin. They do have their own window manager and a quite comprehensive set of applications with simplified interfaces and consistent UI. To me it seems like a worthy goal, however it seems to create a separation between the typical Linux user/developer and their potential targeted users.
    - r3bl 10y ago
      Not really. I developed on elementary quite a lot. I find its ease of getting around quite easy. Your text editor / IDE is at the front and everything else is completely tucked away + you can control basic things about your OS like music / notifications etc. without having to focus on some other app to make a change. And it's pretty lightweight. Comparing that to GNOME, where everything is so damn big that it wastes half of my screen and KDE where the default apps are usually bloated and confusing and can do way too many things, I call Pantheon as a win for the developers. EDIT: Also, one neat trick that I've never seen any other terminal emulator doing other than Pantheon Terminal, is that you get a desktop notification every time you're not focused on the terminal when it finishes its job. For example, let's say I do something like "sudo apt install netbeans". Since the download is large, I'm going to focus on something else in the meantime and I'll get a desktop notification when the installation is finished.
      - fooker 10y ago
- matzipan 10y ago
  The argument is that the potential user needs to be aware of his action when he's entering in "0". Otherwise, it's just automatic - you don't even think about it.
  - jordigh 10y ago
    But I think it's counterproductive, because it looks adversarial. Apparently the best way to get the donation is to bring up the payment screen after the download has happened. This is because risk-averse buyers can first try the product and then feel less pressured to decide how much it's worth: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/53376/ https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/53376/
    - r3bl 10y ago
      It's kind of difficult to do that when you are talking about the OS, isn't it? First of all, it's a rather large download, so you're probably going to close the website as soon as you click on the download button. Second of all, to consume the product in this case, you have to install it. And yet again, after you do so, if you get greeted with the "donate" window right away, you're going to dismiss it because you still haven't tested out the product. So, what you need is a timer, something that says like "after 30 minutes (or an hour, or two hours) of usage, display the window", but that would require the OS to make calls to external servers without the user consent, and, because we are talking about a Linux-based operating system, people would be complaining that this is a a privacy violation.
      - jordigh 10y ago
        > It's kind of difficult to do that when you are talking about the OS, isn't it? Not necessarily. It's not like you expect the buyer to do a careful analysis of what it's worth before they pay. You can usually decide this sort of thing based on very quick impressions. Also, there's the aspect of it just seeming nicer to ask after the download has happened. Then it's clear that you already have the product, now it's up to you to decide what to pay for it, if anything at all. Here people have been tricked into thinking they had to pay and begrudge the author.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  It's a tradeoff between getting more users and getting more money, which I'm sure he knows. He's chosen to be more towards the "money" end of the scale, which is fair enough.
  - divanvisagie 10y ago
    Isn't this a dark pattern though?
    - r3bl 10y ago
      No, it's not. It says "pay what you want" and you can literally pay what you want (including nothing).
      - serf 10y ago
        Well, I think it is. If I pay nothing, I don't pay. I don't say "I paid zero." or "I paid nothing" unless someone asks the specific question "How much did you pay for that?" It's obviously a way to nudge people into paying something. edit: I made an aside about the use of the word 'donation' by cannabis collectives in the U.S. to denote 'payment' (as a way to operate as non-profits and avoid federal problems) as a reference to similarly weak wording used in a nefarious way, but I thought the relationship to the pattern here was weak, so I removed it.
        matzipan 10y ago
        So they should disable writing "0" in the input box and require that you enter "nothing"?
        the-dude 10y ago
        When I first heard about zero-Ohm resistors I thought it was hilarious. They do serve a purpose though.
  - dictum 10y ago
    Incidentally, it's the same tradeoff Apple may have made. Stare into the abyss etc.
- r3bl 10y ago
  In the previous design of the website, there was a small "...or download for free" button tucked away below the payment options. IIRC that meant that the number of users who payed for the OS was something below 1%. Now, after that switch, it's still rather low, but combining with the amount of money they get from other places (like Patreon[0]) it's enough to have two (again, IIRC) full time developers and one part time developer. From what I can remember, there was never a time where they disallowed a way of downloading the OS for free, they just made it more difficult to figure out over time. [0] https://www.patreon.com/elementary https://www.patreon.com/elementary
- module0000 10y ago
  As an OSS contributor, I _do_ begrudge him for it - and this is why. If you were to email Elementary and ask for support with a non-working 'sg' kernel module, I would be highly surprised if they offered you any support. More likely, they would tell you to contact one of the authors, who did not receive one dime for our work. He takes your money, and shirks off supporting you to people that _didn't_ take your money. edit: typo
  - RandomOpinion 10y ago
    >As an OSS contributor, I _do_ begrudge him for it - and this is why. If you were to email Elementary and ask for support with a non-working 'sg' kernel module, I would be highly surprised if they offered you any support. More likely, they would tell you to contact one of the authors, who did not receive one dime for our work. He takes your money, and shirks off supporting you to people that _didn't_ take your money. By voluntarily contributing to an OSS-licensed project, you don't have the moral right to begrudge him for it. What they are doing is completely permitted by the license; RMS has spelled it out over and over. So, no sympathy from me.
    - hajile 10y ago
      That's kinda the point. He pushes for donations, but doesn't offer support. It's not illegal for him to not offer support and it's not illegal for me to not pay him. I would prefer to pay a reasonable subscription fee with a support contract which is also not illegal, but benefits all parties.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        Why are you only willing to pay for support, but not actual contributions?
        hajile 10y ago
        I do make contributions to some projects (can't support them all), but if the project is being too pushy, they can count me out. The idea that I can get support in return is just a nicer model of exchange. There's a good chance that I won't even use that support, but it's nice to know that my contributions have a direct impact on how usable the project is for my needs.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
INTPenis 10y ago
I wish I had known that trick. I payed some money for it, which isn't unusual since I often donate money to open source or activism. But this time I regret every cent. Coming from Mac OS, or even Fedora, Elementary seems unpolished and unstable.
- fizzbatter 10y ago
  I really wish someone would start a paid OS based on Linux and OSS tools. I'd happily pay $100/y (year being, new versions/etc) for a stable and awesome UI/UX. As it is, my Macbook Pro Retina has been crashing a lot and doing weird things frequently since i upgraded to Sierra. Between that and the latest Macbook Pro notebooks, i just don't like Apple anymore. I'm pretty set on buying a highend laptop _(similar build quality to Apple)_ and putting Linux on it... but that's where the fun stops. Linux UIs tend to lag behind significantly. I want a for-profit UI company working on a Linux UI. OSS just can't compete with Apple on design it seems.. and in my opinion, users shouldn't have to choose between OSS and pretty design. It's bad enough that if/when i leave OSX, i lose a lot of my apps due to them not supporting (or not supporting competently) Linux, but losing apps and UX.. well, it's a tough pill to swallow.
  - brockvond 10y ago
    Check out Linux Mint... Cinnamon version... it's a pretty happy middle ground between windows and osx.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - r3bl 10y ago
    I believe elementary OS is the closest thing to what you're looking for. They're an LLC with the team that focuses on building a good looking UI and a nice UX. Pantheon is the only desktop environment which I wouldn't call outdated in the Linux world and somewhat stable and easy to get (Solus project is attempting to do the same, but I think they just don't have enough man power to pull it off).
askmike 10y ago
Ubuntu is doing something very similar: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute?version=16.04.1&architecture=amd64 https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute?version=1...
- merb 10y ago
  at least they have a: > Not now, take me to the download › Link.
  - ianai 10y ago
    If they do that it sounds like elementary probably makes enough money with th current gimmic to keep it.
xd1936 10y ago
Everybody in the FOSS community gets really mad at that decision... I thought it was intuitive. "How much do you want to pay?" "0 Dollars." "Great!" Why is that so horrible?
- skoczymroczny 10y ago
  This part wasn't that horrible as the quote from Elementary blog was (apparently they removed the old blogpost, but it's easily googlable): "We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software. We didn’t exclude a $0 button to deceive you; we believe our software really is worth something."
  - mohanmcgeek 10y ago
    This. They tried to shame people for downloading without paying, Foss community shamed them for that because they don't pay anything for the parts they get from Ubuntu, Debian, gnu, Linux etc.
  - at-fates-hands 10y ago
    >> we believe our software really is worth something. That's why you let users decide after they've used the software. You don't tell someone that up front and expect a payment when you haven't been able to try and test the software for yourself and your team. If it's worthy, then users will come back and offer a payment or contact you to find out how they can contribute if they feel its really worth it. I think a lot of people have this misconception that everybody who uses open source software just assumes it should be free. In my own experience, it's quite the opposite. Most people who use open source are actually more willing to pay for something they feel is valuable to them without hesitation. They're also usually willing to pay a little more then perhaps is necessary in order to make sure its maintained and supported.
- jmpeax 10y ago
  When principles and reality clash, reality wins. In principle the website should make perfect sense to everyone.
mohanmcgeek 10y ago
They caught a lot of flak when they first introduced it. Not only did they introduce this, but they also shamed the people who did not pay http://m.slashdot.org/story/213469 http://m.slashdot.org/story/213469
- jokr004 10y ago
  I was really disappointing with how the elementary guys handled that whole situation.. really turned me off to their distribution.
- mememachine 10y ago
  you cant really have a "choose what you pay" plan and be upset when (many) people pay 0.
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  They retracted that and apologized. It's unreasonable to just hold this over their heads, and in general use it to dismiss their entire project, which they have been working on for half a decade, mostly with no salary, because of one badly phrased sentence from one contributor which was then retracted. I also think if you read the rest of what they're saying, it's probably is true that we will only get Linux GUIs which are competitive with Windows or Mac when people are willing to fund their professional development. OSS works exceptionally well for lower level components, or for components targeted at developers, because everyone involved benefits. For a professional developer a contribution acts as a good mechanism to raise your profile within the community and improve your ability to earn a decent salary elsewhere. For a company, running open source projects means they can solicit contributions and improve their profile; they contribute to other projects because it gives them a base to be able to build their products. We don't expect or find that OSS developers of high profile projects are starving in garrets, they are in fact leaders of their communities, highly prized and in-demand. But these mechanisms do not have the same force when the consumer of the software is a general user, not a developer in the same field. i.e. when you're writing software in C++ which is then going to be used by graphic designers or artists, or by a casual user. In those case, the direct reputational benefits just aren't there, and that's why those sort of projects often struggle to take off. And on top of that those projects also involve a lot of painstaking and arguably boring work to get everything polished to a fine sheen. Krita for instance is excellent, but it has found a way to fund development through yearly crowdfunding. I think the same applies to Linux GUI's, that ultimately you need some pot of money able to support developers, which moves around according to the desires of informed consumers. In my opinion, that's what it will take for desktop Linux to become a serious mass market alternative to Mac and Windows.
chairmanwow 10y ago
I agree this is kinda frustrating, but judging from other comments it seems like ElementaryOS is maintained by a for-profit company. Driving conversions is probably more important to them rather than optimizing for total total number of downloads. I personally think this strategy is limited in scope as it ignores the life-time value of users that donate after using for a period of time, but always interesting to play devil's advocate.
piotrkubisa 10y ago
On their blog [1] and repository [2] there were some clarification about this "trick". [1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2]: https://github.com/elementary/website/pull/655 https://github.com/elementary/website/pull/655 It is a shame for Elementary OS Team, because this issue was many times discussed on GH issues / IRC about implementing just a "$0" button. As I remember in launchpad there is also a task or discussion about suggestion of the dialog which will remind about donation after certain time duration. Edit: Found https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/donation-process https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/donation...
- pmlnr 10y ago
  Not a $0. An "I would like to try it first" button.
  - iamcreasy 10y ago
    I sincerely hope that they start using this approach.
PascLeRasc 10y ago
Hasn't the Ubuntu page been doing that for years?
vamur 10y ago
I don't think this is a trick - especially as it states "Pay What You Want". They need money to develop the OS and apps. And asking later will result in more hate. They should include more videos and screenshots so people have a better idea of what they are buying.
Pulce 10y ago
Sad. I tried to modify elementary OS entry in italian wikipedia for this (and... it is not open software, but 'free' if it is distribuited via GPL...). I did not be able to modify the wiki, anda banned for 24h... EDIT: for 'personal attacks'... LOL, it's all written, where are my personal attacks? LOL

toyg 10y ago

This is a long-standing criticism of Elementary. I think they initially didn't even provide a way to get a free download, and eventually settled for the current UI. Basically the founder-owner is adamant that someone has to pay for his time, and tbh I don't begrudge him.

kybernetyk 10y ago
Oh, I don't begrudge him either. I run a small software company myself. We're selling our software on the internet. But our website focuses on getting people to download the free trial first. The "asking for money" is then done once the trial period ends. It's already hard to get people to download your stuff for free. With obviously visible download buttons. If we did what Elementary is doing we would be closing our shop rather soon.
- embik 10y ago
  As far as I know the GPL does not allow trial periods and asking for money later on, but feel free to correct me. That's why elementary cannot do such a thing.
  - teddyh 10y ago
    If Elementary wants to alter some program to add a time bomb, the GPL cannot stop them. The GPL only ensures that the user can take the time bomb out (either by themselves or by following instructions on the internet, or by hiring somebody to do it).
  - acomar 10y ago
    GPL just requires source to be available to anyone who receives the binary. It has to be available on request. You can ask them to pay for the cost of postage to ship it to them.
    - toyg 10y ago
      Hell, you can ask them to pay anything, like RedHat does, regardless of costs. It's perfectly legal and GPL-compliant. You just have to provide sources.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulryanrogers 10y ago
    GPL doesn't prohibit payment. It just implicitly undercuts payment because the first to pay can redistribute for less or nothing. Yet some projects still squeak out some money: Synergy, DOSBox Turbo, etc.
  - mohanmcgeek 10y ago
    No. Gpl has no such thing. But you'll have to provide the source code with your software, so I'll just modify the source to give myself infinite trial. _that's why it won't work_
    - mikeash 10y ago
      It'll work, it just won't get quite as many conversions as it might otherwise. The same principle applies to closed-source software, after all: you have to provide the binary, so I'll just modify the binary to give myself an infinite trial. This is entirely doable, but enough people still pay to make it a viable business in many cases.
    - Damogran6 10y ago
      The number of people that would bother to do that is relatively small. If it's a good product, and reasonably priced, people would much rather just pay to have it. (See music streaming.)
  - pmontra 10y ago
    The GPL and payment are orthogonal. They could GPL a piece of software that stops working after 30 days if you don't pay. You decide if to compile out the code that checks for the payment (and possibly distribute your version) or pay them those money.
    - holri 10y ago
      If it stops working it violates the GPL: Freedom 0: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose."
      - pmontra 10y ago
        You have the code, so you can run it as you wish. Does this line make a program un-GPL? exit(0) if Time.now > Time.new(2016,11,15,0,0,0)
        holri 10y ago
        yes, because you can start it again. If it destroys itself it is un-GPL
  - kybernetyk 10y ago
    No, I didn't mean a trial version. I just suggested they should ask for a donation once people actually had the chance to find out if they'd consider donating worth it.
endisukaj 10y ago
Considering how Elementary is a skin on top of Ubuntu with some shiny icons and animations... No thank you, I'd rather use Mint or Ubuntu if I want an easy distro.
- matzipan 10y ago
  elementary OS has evolved a lot from just a simple skin on top of Ubuntu. You can see here [1] all the projects which are maintained by the team. [1] https://launchpad.net/elementary https://launchpad.net/elementary
- yoz-y 10y ago
  It is progressively becoming quite more than a simple skin. They do have their own window manager and a quite comprehensive set of applications with simplified interfaces and consistent UI. To me it seems like a worthy goal, however it seems to create a separation between the typical Linux user/developer and their potential targeted users.
  - r3bl 10y ago
    Not really. I developed on elementary quite a lot. I find its ease of getting around quite easy. Your text editor / IDE is at the front and everything else is completely tucked away + you can control basic things about your OS like music / notifications etc. without having to focus on some other app to make a change. And it's pretty lightweight. Comparing that to GNOME, where everything is so damn big that it wastes half of my screen and KDE where the default apps are usually bloated and confusing and can do way too many things, I call Pantheon as a win for the developers. EDIT: Also, one neat trick that I've never seen any other terminal emulator doing other than Pantheon Terminal, is that you get a desktop notification every time you're not focused on the terminal when it finishes its job. For example, let's say I do something like "sudo apt install netbeans". Since the download is large, I'm going to focus on something else in the meantime and I'll get a desktop notification when the installation is finished.
    - fooker 10y ago
matzipan 10y ago
The argument is that the potential user needs to be aware of his action when he's entering in "0". Otherwise, it's just automatic - you don't even think about it.
- jordigh 10y ago
  But I think it's counterproductive, because it looks adversarial. Apparently the best way to get the donation is to bring up the payment screen after the download has happened. This is because risk-averse buyers can first try the product and then feel less pressured to decide how much it's worth: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/53376/ https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/53376/
  - r3bl 10y ago
    It's kind of difficult to do that when you are talking about the OS, isn't it? First of all, it's a rather large download, so you're probably going to close the website as soon as you click on the download button. Second of all, to consume the product in this case, you have to install it. And yet again, after you do so, if you get greeted with the "donate" window right away, you're going to dismiss it because you still haven't tested out the product. So, what you need is a timer, something that says like "after 30 minutes (or an hour, or two hours) of usage, display the window", but that would require the OS to make calls to external servers without the user consent, and, because we are talking about a Linux-based operating system, people would be complaining that this is a a privacy violation.
    - jordigh 10y ago
      > It's kind of difficult to do that when you are talking about the OS, isn't it? Not necessarily. It's not like you expect the buyer to do a careful analysis of what it's worth before they pay. You can usually decide this sort of thing based on very quick impressions. Also, there's the aspect of it just seeming nicer to ask after the download has happened. Then it's clear that you already have the product, now it's up to you to decide what to pay for it, if anything at all. Here people have been tricked into thinking they had to pay and begrudge the author.
StavrosK 10y ago
It's a tradeoff between getting more users and getting more money, which I'm sure he knows. He's chosen to be more towards the "money" end of the scale, which is fair enough.
- divanvisagie 10y ago
  Isn't this a dark pattern though?
  - r3bl 10y ago
    No, it's not. It says "pay what you want" and you can literally pay what you want (including nothing).
    - serf 10y ago
      Well, I think it is. If I pay nothing, I don't pay. I don't say "I paid zero." or "I paid nothing" unless someone asks the specific question "How much did you pay for that?" It's obviously a way to nudge people into paying something. edit: I made an aside about the use of the word 'donation' by cannabis collectives in the U.S. to denote 'payment' (as a way to operate as non-profits and avoid federal problems) as a reference to similarly weak wording used in a nefarious way, but I thought the relationship to the pattern here was weak, so I removed it.
      - matzipan 10y ago
        So they should disable writing "0" in the input box and require that you enter "nothing"?
      - the-dude 10y ago
        When I first heard about zero-Ohm resistors I thought it was hilarious. They do serve a purpose though.
- dictum 10y ago
  Incidentally, it's the same tradeoff Apple may have made. Stare into the abyss etc.
r3bl 10y ago
In the previous design of the website, there was a small "...or download for free" button tucked away below the payment options. IIRC that meant that the number of users who payed for the OS was something below 1%. Now, after that switch, it's still rather low, but combining with the amount of money they get from other places (like Patreon[0]) it's enough to have two (again, IIRC) full time developers and one part time developer. From what I can remember, there was never a time where they disallowed a way of downloading the OS for free, they just made it more difficult to figure out over time. [0] https://www.patreon.com/elementary https://www.patreon.com/elementary
module0000 10y ago
As an OSS contributor, I _do_ begrudge him for it - and this is why. If you were to email Elementary and ask for support with a non-working 'sg' kernel module, I would be highly surprised if they offered you any support. More likely, they would tell you to contact one of the authors, who did not receive one dime for our work. He takes your money, and shirks off supporting you to people that _didn't_ take your money. edit: typo
- RandomOpinion 10y ago
  >As an OSS contributor, I _do_ begrudge him for it - and this is why. If you were to email Elementary and ask for support with a non-working 'sg' kernel module, I would be highly surprised if they offered you any support. More likely, they would tell you to contact one of the authors, who did not receive one dime for our work. He takes your money, and shirks off supporting you to people that _didn't_ take your money. By voluntarily contributing to an OSS-licensed project, you don't have the moral right to begrudge him for it. What they are doing is completely permitted by the license; RMS has spelled it out over and over. So, no sympathy from me.
  - hajile 10y ago
    That's kinda the point. He pushes for donations, but doesn't offer support. It's not illegal for him to not offer support and it's not illegal for me to not pay him. I would prefer to pay a reasonable subscription fee with a support contract which is also not illegal, but benefits all parties.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      Why are you only willing to pay for support, but not actual contributions?
      - hajile 10y ago
        I do make contributions to some projects (can't support them all), but if the project is being too pushy, they can count me out. The idea that I can get support in return is just a nicer model of exchange. There's a good chance that I won't even use that support, but it's nice to know that my contributions have a direct impact on how usable the project is for my needs.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

INTPenis 10y ago

I wish I had known that trick. I payed some money for it, which isn't unusual since I often donate money to open source or activism. But this time I regret every cent. Coming from Mac OS, or even Fedora, Elementary seems unpolished and unstable.

fizzbatter 10y ago
I really wish someone would start a paid OS based on Linux and OSS tools. I'd happily pay $100/y (year being, new versions/etc) for a stable and awesome UI/UX. As it is, my Macbook Pro Retina has been crashing a lot and doing weird things frequently since i upgraded to Sierra. Between that and the latest Macbook Pro notebooks, i just don't like Apple anymore. I'm pretty set on buying a highend laptop _(similar build quality to Apple)_ and putting Linux on it... but that's where the fun stops. Linux UIs tend to lag behind significantly. I want a for-profit UI company working on a Linux UI. OSS just can't compete with Apple on design it seems.. and in my opinion, users shouldn't have to choose between OSS and pretty design. It's bad enough that if/when i leave OSX, i lose a lot of my apps due to them not supporting (or not supporting competently) Linux, but losing apps and UX.. well, it's a tough pill to swallow.
- brockvond 10y ago
  Check out Linux Mint... Cinnamon version... it's a pretty happy middle ground between windows and osx.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- r3bl 10y ago
  I believe elementary OS is the closest thing to what you're looking for. They're an LLC with the team that focuses on building a good looking UI and a nice UX. Pantheon is the only desktop environment which I wouldn't call outdated in the Linux world and somewhat stable and easy to get (Solus project is attempting to do the same, but I think they just don't have enough man power to pull it off).

askmike 10y ago

Ubuntu is doing something very similar: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute?version=16.04.1&architecture=amd64 https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute?version=1...

merb 10y ago
at least they have a: > Not now, take me to the download › Link.
- ianai 10y ago
  If they do that it sounds like elementary probably makes enough money with th current gimmic to keep it.

xd1936 10y ago

Everybody in the FOSS community gets really mad at that decision... I thought it was intuitive. "How much do you want to pay?" "0 Dollars." "Great!" Why is that so horrible?

skoczymroczny 10y ago
This part wasn't that horrible as the quote from Elementary blog was (apparently they removed the old blogpost, but it's easily googlable): "We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software. We didn’t exclude a $0 button to deceive you; we believe our software really is worth something."
- mohanmcgeek 10y ago
  This. They tried to shame people for downloading without paying, Foss community shamed them for that because they don't pay anything for the parts they get from Ubuntu, Debian, gnu, Linux etc.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  >> we believe our software really is worth something. That's why you let users decide after they've used the software. You don't tell someone that up front and expect a payment when you haven't been able to try and test the software for yourself and your team. If it's worthy, then users will come back and offer a payment or contact you to find out how they can contribute if they feel its really worth it. I think a lot of people have this misconception that everybody who uses open source software just assumes it should be free. In my own experience, it's quite the opposite. Most people who use open source are actually more willing to pay for something they feel is valuable to them without hesitation. They're also usually willing to pay a little more then perhaps is necessary in order to make sure its maintained and supported.
jmpeax 10y ago
When principles and reality clash, reality wins. In principle the website should make perfect sense to everyone.

mohanmcgeek 10y ago

They caught a lot of flak when they first introduced it. Not only did they introduce this, but they also shamed the people who did not pay http://m.slashdot.org/story/213469 http://m.slashdot.org/story/213469

jokr004 10y ago
I was really disappointing with how the elementary guys handled that whole situation.. really turned me off to their distribution.
mememachine 10y ago
you cant really have a "choose what you pay" plan and be upset when (many) people pay 0.
Brakenshire 10y ago
They retracted that and apologized. It's unreasonable to just hold this over their heads, and in general use it to dismiss their entire project, which they have been working on for half a decade, mostly with no salary, because of one badly phrased sentence from one contributor which was then retracted. I also think if you read the rest of what they're saying, it's probably is true that we will only get Linux GUIs which are competitive with Windows or Mac when people are willing to fund their professional development. OSS works exceptionally well for lower level components, or for components targeted at developers, because everyone involved benefits. For a professional developer a contribution acts as a good mechanism to raise your profile within the community and improve your ability to earn a decent salary elsewhere. For a company, running open source projects means they can solicit contributions and improve their profile; they contribute to other projects because it gives them a base to be able to build their products. We don't expect or find that OSS developers of high profile projects are starving in garrets, they are in fact leaders of their communities, highly prized and in-demand. But these mechanisms do not have the same force when the consumer of the software is a general user, not a developer in the same field. i.e. when you're writing software in C++ which is then going to be used by graphic designers or artists, or by a casual user. In those case, the direct reputational benefits just aren't there, and that's why those sort of projects often struggle to take off. And on top of that those projects also involve a lot of painstaking and arguably boring work to get everything polished to a fine sheen. Krita for instance is excellent, but it has found a way to fund development through yearly crowdfunding. I think the same applies to Linux GUI's, that ultimately you need some pot of money able to support developers, which moves around according to the desires of informed consumers. In my opinion, that's what it will take for desktop Linux to become a serious mass market alternative to Mac and Windows.

chairmanwow 10y ago

I agree this is kinda frustrating, but judging from other comments it seems like ElementaryOS is maintained by a for-profit company. Driving conversions is probably more important to them rather than optimizing for total total number of downloads. I personally think this strategy is limited in scope as it ignores the life-time value of users that donate after using for a period of time, but always interesting to play devil's advocate.

piotrkubisa 10y ago

On their blog [1] and repository [2] there were some clarification about this "trick". [1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2]: https://github.com/elementary/website/pull/655 https://github.com/elementary/website/pull/655 It is a shame for Elementary OS Team, because this issue was many times discussed on GH issues / IRC about implementing just a "$0" button. As I remember in launchpad there is also a task or discussion about suggestion of the dialog which will remind about donation after certain time duration. Edit: Found https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/donation-process https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/donation...

pmlnr 10y ago
Not a $0. An "I would like to try it first" button.
- iamcreasy 10y ago
  I sincerely hope that they start using this approach.

PascLeRasc 10y ago

Hasn't the Ubuntu page been doing that for years?

vamur 10y ago

I don't think this is a trick - especially as it states "Pay What You Want". They need money to develop the OS and apps. And asking later will result in more hate. They should include more videos and screenshots so people have a better idea of what they are buying.

Pulce 10y ago

Sad. I tried to modify elementary OS entry in italian wikipedia for this (and... it is not open software, but 'free' if it is distribuited via GPL...). I did not be able to modify the wiki, anda banned for 24h... EDIT: for 'personal attacks'... LOL, it's all written, where are my personal attacks? LOL