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That's utter bollocks. This has been central to the debate since it started in the 90's. You absolutely can charge for Free Software, and many people have done
by TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
That's utter bollocks. This has been central to the debate since it started in the 90's. You absolutely can charge for Free Software, and many people have done so. I collectively paid a lot of money for boxed releases of Red Hat and SuSE back in the day, to support development. The risk, of course, is that someone else will take the codebase, and produce a free-as-in-beer version (ala White Box Linux). I say: let them. I'm willing to pay for a supported, professional version, and I have a history of doing so.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoI don't know of a single Free Software project that gets significant income from selling the software. Introducing the option of paying for Firefox would change nothing, as people would continue to download Firefox without paying, and Firefox would continue to auto-update itself without charge. People are already able to donate to Mozilla (although not directly to Firefox), if that's what they want to do. > I collectively paid a lot of money for boxed releases of Red Hat and SuSE back in the day, to support development. Right, exactly. It's essentially an optional donation, and sadly, few people choose to make optional donations. > I'm willing to pay for a supported, professional version Charging for premium support is a different idea. I'm not opposed to paid Free Software support, in principle I think it's a great idea, but I doubt it would generate much revenue.