7 ms·

This is completely baffling. Just remove the option to download your thing for free. You know it has value. You just spent a thousand words explaining why you

This is completely baffling. Just remove the option to download your thing for free. You know it has value. You just spent a thousand words explaining why you think people should pay money for your thing. There's an easy way to get them to do that: Charge money for your thing. No need to guilt anybody. No need to apologize. You built an entire operating system. Those cost money. Give your users the option of paying you, not using your thing, or (if you absolutely can't detach yourself from this irrational need to give your work away for free) building it from source.

detaro 11y ago
Removing the option to download GPL software for free seems like a pointless exercise... Also: they build a set of desktop apps for Ubuntu and did some other polishing work. Not to say that isn't hard and important work, but it also isn't "building an entire operating system".
- jasonkester 11y ago
  Not at all. The "download" we're talking about here is the binary (unless I'm mistaken). People with $10 in their bank account and the ability to calculate the value of half an hour of their time will happily pay to avoid fighting dependencies to compile this thing from source. The angry entitled people commenting on this poor guy's blog can download the source for free. (And to your edit, people who think that there is not $10 of value added can simply not install it.) Everybody wins.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    As easy as googling "elementary os iso download" and there will probably be some website with all ISOs ready to be downloaded for free.
  - derefr 11y ago
    People tend to use Linux for mass installs, though. Once you say "it costs $10 to download this software", you have to ask "but what if I want to download it again? Or, conversely, download once but install onto 1000 PCs?" The fully-correct-and-flexible answer is, sadly, the Microsoft-like enterprisey one: to have a user account and charge the user for a multi-seat license to the software, which provides a product key entered during the installation. That way, you can reuse the same installation image as much as you want, but each activation has a cost.
  - Nursie 11y ago
    Or people that want a binary can get it from someone sharing them, as is their right under the GPL.
- derefr 11y ago
  I don't see why. The GPL requires that you provide the source for free. It says nothing about providing the binaries for free. The entire job of a distro is packaging and ease-of-configuration-management. If you do that part yourself to spite them, you're removing the entirety of the advantage you were getting by using their distro in the first place. The incentives work out.
  - Mikeb85 11y ago
    Most of the binaries come from Ubuntu repositories...
  - ikurei 11y ago
    The iso will be available through torrent in no time. This way all those who won't/can't pay at least see how they could do that in the future.
  - Nursie 11y ago
    The GPL requires you to give source to anyone you gave binaries to, not publish the source to the world. But the important part is that everyone you gave any source or binaries to has the right of redistribution
    - anon3_ 11y ago
      That's the fallacy of the GPL. It's less about privacy (YOU Vs big brother) and more about people feeling entitled to free software. All the time. And now it's too far - you're trying to bankrupt people who aren't big corporations in big suits - but people who felt humble, artistic passion. You think you can act like a mob to crush their dream and gut it out. This is another example of people swarming like locusts because they fail to understand that other people have mortgages to pay too. Taken further, the license that Linux falls under makes like all the more miserable for providing your own value and creativity. GPL is truly a minefield for commerce.
      - Redoubts 11y ago
        They could have worked on a BSD. This strategy has worked well in the past...
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I think some people (including the other repliers) don't quite understand the GPL. You don't have to distribute the source code, but if you distribute a binary, you must offer to distribute the source to the people you distributed the binary to. Similarly, you can't stop them from redistributing either the binaries or source, or modifying them under the GPL license. So charging for GPL software (whether binary or source) is far from useless. Back in the day I often bought CDs with a Linux distribution on it. It was easier than downloading it when the internet was not as pervasive as it is now. Having said that, I don't think they have a viable business model. Charging for distributing a Linux base OS, even if you have added your own changes, is unlikely to make a lot of money. They would probably be better off trying to find a niche and then do contract work to improve it.
  - hueving 11y ago
    Someone could put the code on github and have an s3 download link up in all of 5 minutes. A blog post and 15 minutes of retweets later and it has the number 1 spot on Google for elementary os. It's incredibly trivial to spread gpl code now so charging for it is a non starter and just makes you look a bit foolish.
    - ams6110 11y ago
      A large portion of the appeal of something like ElementaryOS is going to be that I do not need to download source code, build binaries, try to follow some poorly-written installation README file, etc. I would certainly be willing to pay $10 or more for the convenience of not having to do that. Focus on your paying customers, and just accept that some people will not pay. So what? If your code ends up on github it isn't costing you anything, and you're not going to lose many paying customers because the people going to github were never going to pay you in the first place.
      - hueving 11y ago
        Did you miss the part I mentioned about putting that on s3?
    - 11y ago
- lvillani 11y ago
  Synergy binaries (http://synergy-project.org http://synergy-project.org) are behind a paywall. The same goes for Textual (https://www.codeux.com/textual/ https://www.codeux.com/textual/). They are both GPL and BSD-licensed pieces of software. Ardour (http://ardour.org/download.html http://ardour.org/download.html) operates the same way. By paying a small sum you get access to precompiled binaries, some level of support and peace of mind that you are helping developers continue their work in a sustainable way. Frankly I would like to see this model adopted more often in the FLOSS world.
ukandy 11y ago
"You built an entire operating system." It's Ubuntu (under the hood), marketed at people that wouldn't consider using a *nix OS.
TorKlingberg 11y ago
Then they would lose 99.875% of their userbase. The support forums would dry up, there would be fewer advocates etc. A Linux distro needs a critical mass of users.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  still comes across as a dick move to have people enter the zero. making people feel guilty for an allowed act is just dumb if you are trying to establish a working relationship
  - SunShiranui 11y ago
    I don't think having to type out "0" is that difficult of a choice.
  - jokr004 11y ago
    I'm actually totally fine with having to type in zero, noting seems that unreasonable about that to me.. in fact I think there's some value in drawing attention to the fact that open source projects rely on donations. However I find this whole guilt trip explanation in serious poor taste.
mcjiggerlog 11y ago
This would just mean that people would pirate it. It might not be a problem for you now, but for people in some parts of the world or budding young users will have issues with having to pay.

detaro 11y ago

Removing the option to download GPL software for free seems like a pointless exercise... Also: they build a set of desktop apps for Ubuntu and did some other polishing work. Not to say that isn't hard and important work, but it also isn't "building an entire operating system".

jasonkester 11y ago
Not at all. The "download" we're talking about here is the binary (unless I'm mistaken). People with $10 in their bank account and the ability to calculate the value of half an hour of their time will happily pay to avoid fighting dependencies to compile this thing from source. The angry entitled people commenting on this poor guy's blog can download the source for free. (And to your edit, people who think that there is not $10 of value added can simply not install it.) Everybody wins.
- mahouse 11y ago
  As easy as googling "elementary os iso download" and there will probably be some website with all ISOs ready to be downloaded for free.
- derefr 11y ago
  People tend to use Linux for mass installs, though. Once you say "it costs $10 to download this software", you have to ask "but what if I want to download it again? Or, conversely, download once but install onto 1000 PCs?" The fully-correct-and-flexible answer is, sadly, the Microsoft-like enterprisey one: to have a user account and charge the user for a multi-seat license to the software, which provides a product key entered during the installation. That way, you can reuse the same installation image as much as you want, but each activation has a cost.
- Nursie 11y ago
  Or people that want a binary can get it from someone sharing them, as is their right under the GPL.
derefr 11y ago
I don't see why. The GPL requires that you provide the source for free. It says nothing about providing the binaries for free. The entire job of a distro is packaging and ease-of-configuration-management. If you do that part yourself to spite them, you're removing the entirety of the advantage you were getting by using their distro in the first place. The incentives work out.
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  Most of the binaries come from Ubuntu repositories...
- ikurei 11y ago
  The iso will be available through torrent in no time. This way all those who won't/can't pay at least see how they could do that in the future.
- Nursie 11y ago
  The GPL requires you to give source to anyone you gave binaries to, not publish the source to the world. But the important part is that everyone you gave any source or binaries to has the right of redistribution
  - anon3_ 11y ago
    That's the fallacy of the GPL. It's less about privacy (YOU Vs big brother) and more about people feeling entitled to free software. All the time. And now it's too far - you're trying to bankrupt people who aren't big corporations in big suits - but people who felt humble, artistic passion. You think you can act like a mob to crush their dream and gut it out. This is another example of people swarming like locusts because they fail to understand that other people have mortgages to pay too. Taken further, the license that Linux falls under makes like all the more miserable for providing your own value and creativity. GPL is truly a minefield for commerce.
    - Redoubts 11y ago
      They could have worked on a BSD. This strategy has worked well in the past...
mikekchar 11y ago
I think some people (including the other repliers) don't quite understand the GPL. You don't have to distribute the source code, but if you distribute a binary, you must offer to distribute the source to the people you distributed the binary to. Similarly, you can't stop them from redistributing either the binaries or source, or modifying them under the GPL license. So charging for GPL software (whether binary or source) is far from useless. Back in the day I often bought CDs with a Linux distribution on it. It was easier than downloading it when the internet was not as pervasive as it is now. Having said that, I don't think they have a viable business model. Charging for distributing a Linux base OS, even if you have added your own changes, is unlikely to make a lot of money. They would probably be better off trying to find a niche and then do contract work to improve it.
- hueving 11y ago
  Someone could put the code on github and have an s3 download link up in all of 5 minutes. A blog post and 15 minutes of retweets later and it has the number 1 spot on Google for elementary os. It's incredibly trivial to spread gpl code now so charging for it is a non starter and just makes you look a bit foolish.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    A large portion of the appeal of something like ElementaryOS is going to be that I do not need to download source code, build binaries, try to follow some poorly-written installation README file, etc. I would certainly be willing to pay $10 or more for the convenience of not having to do that. Focus on your paying customers, and just accept that some people will not pay. So what? If your code ends up on github it isn't costing you anything, and you're not going to lose many paying customers because the people going to github were never going to pay you in the first place.
    - hueving 11y ago
      Did you miss the part I mentioned about putting that on s3?
  - 11y ago
lvillani 11y ago
Synergy binaries (http://synergy-project.org http://synergy-project.org) are behind a paywall. The same goes for Textual (https://www.codeux.com/textual/ https://www.codeux.com/textual/). They are both GPL and BSD-licensed pieces of software. Ardour (http://ardour.org/download.html http://ardour.org/download.html) operates the same way. By paying a small sum you get access to precompiled binaries, some level of support and peace of mind that you are helping developers continue their work in a sustainable way. Frankly I would like to see this model adopted more often in the FLOSS world.

ukandy 11y ago

"You built an entire operating system." It's Ubuntu (under the hood), marketed at people that wouldn't consider using a *nix OS.

TorKlingberg 11y ago

Then they would lose 99.875% of their userbase. The support forums would dry up, there would be fewer advocates etc. A Linux distro needs a critical mass of users.

Shivetya 11y ago
still comes across as a dick move to have people enter the zero. making people feel guilty for an allowed act is just dumb if you are trying to establish a working relationship
- SunShiranui 11y ago
  I don't think having to type out "0" is that difficult of a choice.
- jokr004 11y ago
  I'm actually totally fine with having to type in zero, noting seems that unreasonable about that to me.. in fact I think there's some value in drawing attention to the fact that open source projects rely on donations. However I find this whole guilt trip explanation in serious poor taste.

mcjiggerlog 11y ago

This would just mean that people would pirate it. It might not be a problem for you now, but for people in some parts of the world or budding young users will have issues with having to pay.