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The recent kerfluffle in which the ElementaryOS team changed their download page to try to hide the "free" option and said "We want users to understand that the

by cheald 12y ago

The recent kerfluffle in which the ElementaryOS team changed their download page to try to hide the "free" option and said "We want users to understand that they're pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software" makes me super hesitant to even try it. I'm not sure I want to be using a Linux distro produced by people who think that free-as-in-beer is a bug.

yellowapple 12y ago
To be honest, I don't see that as too much of a problem; Ardour, for example, is free-as-in-speech and technically free-as-in-beer (since you don't have to buy Ardour to get the source code and compile it yourself, and it is indeed available as a package for most distros), but still only provides binary downloads via the website to users who pay for them. There are also plenty of distros - like RHEL and SUSE - that are only officially available in their paid-for versions (though both of those have corresponding free-as-in-beer development/testing versions - Fedora and openSUSE, respectively - and CentOS also exists as a theoretically-drop-in RHEL replacement). Software has to be monetized somehow. SUSE and RHEL and Oracle Linux are monetized by subscriptions to support contracts. Slackware is monetized by sales of double-sided DVDs. Ubuntu is monetized by a mix of support contracts and begging for donations on the download page. OpenBSD is monetized by a a mix of donations and merchandise sales (including install CD packs and t-shirts and such). I'm not one to believe that ElementaryOS is any more or less sinful than any of those examples.
- cheald 12y ago
  I don't have any problem with monetizing FOSS - I think it's awesome, in fact. I have a ton of respect for RedHat and their business model. Ardour's model is great, too - the product is free, but we'll sell you convenience. It's entirely possible to have a saleable product coexist with a FOSS license. My issue with the eOS team wasn't that they said "we want to make money for this", but that they accused their users of being cheats for not paying them for the software, the vast majority of which they didn't write or maintain. I want OSS devs making money. Heck, I want the eOS guys making money, if they're making a product that people like and want to see continued. But their tack was pretty amazingly hypocritical.

by cheald 12y ago

yellowapple 12y ago

To be honest, I don't see that as too much of a problem; Ardour, for example, is free-as-in-speech and technically free-as-in-beer (since you don't have to buy Ardour to get the source code and compile it yourself, and it is indeed available as a package for most distros), but still only provides binary downloads via the website to users who pay for them. There are also plenty of distros - like RHEL and SUSE - that are only officially available in their paid-for versions (though both of those have corresponding free-as-in-beer development/testing versions - Fedora and openSUSE, respectively - and CentOS also exists as a theoretically-drop-in RHEL replacement). Software has to be monetized somehow. SUSE and RHEL and Oracle Linux are monetized by subscriptions to support contracts. Slackware is monetized by sales of double-sided DVDs. Ubuntu is monetized by a mix of support contracts and begging for donations on the download page. OpenBSD is monetized by a a mix of donations and merchandise sales (including install CD packs and t-shirts and such). I'm not one to believe that ElementaryOS is any more or less sinful than any of those examples.

cheald 12y ago
I don't have any problem with monetizing FOSS - I think it's awesome, in fact. I have a ton of respect for RedHat and their business model. Ardour's model is great, too - the product is free, but we'll sell you convenience. It's entirely possible to have a saleable product coexist with a FOSS license. My issue with the eOS team wasn't that they said "we want to make money for this", but that they accused their users of being cheats for not paying them for the software, the vast majority of which they didn't write or maintain. I want OSS devs making money. Heck, I want the eOS guys making money, if they're making a product that people like and want to see continued. But their tack was pretty amazingly hypocritical.