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I completely disagree. I use Linux because of how well it works and would gladly pay money for it, and I think most long term Linux users stick with it because

I completely disagree. I use Linux because of how well it works and would gladly pay money for it, and I think most long term Linux users stick with it because of how well it works. In fact, most Linux users I know purchased a computer with Windows already on it, and completely wiped it off to put Linux on there. So they've already 'payed' for Windows, but use a different OS anyways. I'm also not saying people should pay for bad software in hopes that it will become good. I'm saying that we need to make it easier to pay for software so that software that good that already exists can be purchased. Android is an example of how Linux and payments can work. An open source operating system with many free pieces of software, but an App store where products can still be purchased.

houseabsolute 16y ago
> would gladly pay money for it So, have you? If so, how much? I've spent $300 on software for my Windows computer in the last year, and another $100 on software for my Mac. > So they've already 'payed' for Windows, but use a different OS anyways. Granted, but I think far fewer people would if Linux wasn't completely free. If Linux distros were able to enforce a charge of $5 per download, I suspect consumer adoption would halve or worse. > Android is an example I'm not sure that's the best example considering the trouble many developers are having making money on Android. But even if we go with that, there are probably already far more people carrying Android handsets than are using Linux on the desktop. More than that, there's a question about what type of people and for what motivation people buy Android phones. Notice how I said "buy Android phones," not "install Android". People buy Android phones explicitly because you can easily buy desirable apps on them, unlike so many other phone OSes. But the operating system is not free like beer in the sense that it is easily downloaded and installed on a device people already have on hand. You still in most cases have to go out and buy the device. So it does not suffer (as much) from the selection effect I described earlier. (The evidence I've seen so far does suggest that its demographics with respect to paying for software deviate significantly from those of the iPhone.)
- nailer 16y ago
  Yeah. I've paid for virtualization tools, games, proprietary libraries that made my life easier (OSS back in the day). I'd happily pay Dag Wieers for RHEL/Fedora repo access if he asked for cash too.

houseabsolute 16y ago

> would gladly pay money for it So, have you? If so, how much? I've spent $300 on software for my Windows computer in the last year, and another $100 on software for my Mac. > So they've already 'payed' for Windows, but use a different OS anyways. Granted, but I think far fewer people would if Linux wasn't completely free. If Linux distros were able to enforce a charge of $5 per download, I suspect consumer adoption would halve or worse. > Android is an example I'm not sure that's the best example considering the trouble many developers are having making money on Android. But even if we go with that, there are probably already far more people carrying Android handsets than are using Linux on the desktop. More than that, there's a question about what type of people and for what motivation people buy Android phones. Notice how I said "buy Android phones," not "install Android". People buy Android phones explicitly because you can easily buy desirable apps on them, unlike so many other phone OSes. But the operating system is not free like beer in the sense that it is easily downloaded and installed on a device people already have on hand. You still in most cases have to go out and buy the device. So it does not suffer (as much) from the selection effect I described earlier. (The evidence I've seen so far does suggest that its demographics with respect to paying for software deviate significantly from those of the iPhone.)

nailer 16y ago
Yeah. I've paid for virtualization tools, games, proprietary libraries that made my life easier (OSS back in the day). I'd happily pay Dag Wieers for RHEL/Fedora repo access if he asked for cash too.