>So they wrote all this code themselves right?No, of course they didn't. The large majority of what they are selling was written by others (kernel, Debian, etc)

>So they wrote all this code themselves right?No, of course they didn't. The large majority of what they are selling was written by others (kernel, Debian, etc). That's is misleading at most. It's true that they use other free software, so they don't write all the software themselves. That's a fact, but every other open source project is based in work by other. The development of Linux kernel is based in work made by individuals at their own expense, but also contributions made by companies (as IBM, Canonical, Red Hat) and donations. Linux have paid software developers (it does not cost you but it cost to somebody). As far I know, the developers of Elementary OS, are collaborating with the community and they have fixed problems in other open source projects they use themselves as Gtk. >Are they passing any revenue to their upstream providers? They have posted bounties (cash) to fix bugs in other software the "upstream providers" in bountysource, so that's public information. >hey have every right to try and charge people, That's true!. > but it's very disengineous to run git clone on a FOSS repo,make a few changes then write a big blog post about charging for the output. They write their own file-manager (pantheon-files), their own window manager (gala, over mutter), their own configuration system (switchboard). Their calendar application, their calculator, their music player, their movie player... etc. So that's not easy, and your own phrase is "very disengineous" at least, certainly inaccurate and I hope not bad intentioned. *Edited:formating.