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I'll try to explain my reasoning, then. If Netflix and other very profitable companies are, as I'm told, contributing in both code and money to FreeBSD, and if
by na85 9y ago
I'll try to explain my reasoning, then.
If Netflix and other very profitable companies are, as I'm told, contributing in both code and money to FreeBSD, and if I'm also being asked to donate, then the contributions from said corporations are obviously not enough to cover the costs of FreeBSD development.
Since I pay for Netflix, why should I double-pay by donating to FreeBSD? Seems to me that Netflix should be digging a little deeper into their pockets.
I don't understand your point re: Windows. If companies are paying for Windows, then Microsoft is receiving a payment which they have presumably set at a level they deem sufficient to support continuing development of Windows and other projects. I see no parallel to my point about FreeBSD other than the fact that both are operating systems.
- avar 9y agoYou don't pay Netflix to use FreeBSD, you pay them for a streaming video service that would be indistinguishable to you if they used Linux. I'd expect Netflix to pay enough for FreeBSD to fund things they're interested in for running their own infrastructure. This is how free software development works, if you have an itch you either scratch it yourself or pay someone to scratch it. You wouldn't want a FreeBSD that would be entirely funded by Netflix either, because nobody would be working on anything Netflix itself didn't need, such a system would quickly end up being useless to you.