4 ms·

I would not have a problem paying for software if what I was paying for didn't suck. Case in point: I have never been very happy with Win 10 since I got it, but

I would not have a problem paying for software if what I was paying for didn't suck. Case in point: I have never been very happy with Win 10 since I got it, but in recent weeks it has become completely unusable, mostly because of their constant upgrades and behind-the-scenes processes that slow my machine down to a crawl. Out of frustration I wiped my drive and installed Ubuntu. Granted, Linux has it's share of problems but still works much better for my uses. So, one OS is paid and one isn't. Guess which? :/ My personal gripe is that it seems to me, when it comes to basic customer service, we the customers are on the bottom of the totem pole. Software companies spend more time worrying about how to reassure their shareholders than they do about making sure we have a usable, hassle-free product, and I've been seeing this trend getting worse in recent years. So until that thought-process changes these people will not get my money. As far as I'm concerned, at this point anyway, FOSS is the lesser of two evils.

josteink 8y ago
Ubuntu gives you a very clear option to pay for it when you download it. If it works for you and you want it to keep working, making a donation/payment may not be the worst idea.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Exactly, I always paid in some form to the distributions I had on my computers.
ThrowawayR2 8y ago
> So, one OS is paid and one isn't. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_(company): Canonical achieved a small operating profit of $281,000 in 2009, however until 2017 it struggled to maintain financial solvency and took a major financial hit from the development of Unity and Ubuntu Touch, leading to an operating loss of $21.6 Million for the fiscal year 2013.[19] The company reported an operating profit of $2 Million in 2017 after shutting down the Unity development team and laying off nearly 200 employees. The company now plans to focus on its server and professional support solutions, which have proved to be most profitable. By shifting resources away from Ubuntu Desktop and cutting less profitable products and services, Canonical plans to maintain solvency and achieve long-term profitability. "one isn't" (your words) to the extent that they had to switch focus away from the desktop OS to stay afloat. Much as people would like to pretend otherwise, the almighty dollar/euro/yen/etc. is still what matters most.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  I'm not convinced that unity every added much value to ubuntu it seems like they could have spent a small fraction of the money customizing gnome/cinnamon or actually shipping plasma with up to date deps and come out way ahead both for users and monetarily.

josteink 8y ago

Ubuntu gives you a very clear option to pay for it when you download it. If it works for you and you want it to keep working, making a donation/payment may not be the worst idea.

pjmlp 8y ago
Exactly, I always paid in some form to the distributions I had on my computers.

ThrowawayR2 8y ago

> So, one OS is paid and one isn't. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_(company): Canonical achieved a small operating profit of $281,000 in 2009, however until 2017 it struggled to maintain financial solvency and took a major financial hit from the development of Unity and Ubuntu Touch, leading to an operating loss of $21.6 Million for the fiscal year 2013.[19] The company reported an operating profit of $2 Million in 2017 after shutting down the Unity development team and laying off nearly 200 employees. The company now plans to focus on its server and professional support solutions, which have proved to be most profitable. By shifting resources away from Ubuntu Desktop and cutting less profitable products and services, Canonical plans to maintain solvency and achieve long-term profitability. "one isn't" (your words) to the extent that they had to switch focus away from the desktop OS to stay afloat. Much as people would like to pretend otherwise, the almighty dollar/euro/yen/etc. is still what matters most.

michaelmrose 8y ago
I'm not convinced that unity every added much value to ubuntu it seems like they could have spent a small fraction of the money customizing gnome/cinnamon or actually shipping plasma with up to date deps and come out way ahead both for users and monetarily.