Elementary OS: Why We Make You Type "$0"

jones_supa writes Open source software can always be acquired without charge, but can still incur significant development costs. Elementary OS wants to make people aware of this, and have changed their website to suggest donating when downloading, and make users explicitly enter "$0" if they want a free download. This is the same strategy Canonical has used when offering Ubuntu. The Elementary OS blog explains: "Developing software has a huge cost. Some companies offset that cost by charging hundreds of dollars for their software, making manufacturers pay them to license the software, or selling expensive hardware with the OS included. Others offset it by mining user data and charging companies to target ads to their users. [...] If we want to see the world of open source software grow, we should encourage users to pay for its development; otherwise it'll be underfunded or developers will have to resort to backdoor deals and advertising. And nobody wants that future." Currently the only people who have received money for working on Elementary OS have been community members through their bounty program.

Comments

call me rms, but this misses the point.

[nimbius]

If we want to see the world of open source software grow, we should encourage users to pay for its development; otherwise it'll be underfunded or developers will have to resort to backdoor deals and advertising.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what open source is and why. It doesnt have to be free as in beer, but you do need to provide the source code. If you want to charge customers for the service of compiling that code for them, so be it, but shaming them with zero dollars misses the point. Open source can generate revenue through support, as is evidenced by RedHat. Deployment and professional services are also other methods to fund open source, but insisting developers will eventually be forced to cobble their projects like bootloaders and ui elements to adware is misplaced. in many cases open source software exists explicitly because this intrusive model of profiteering is a detrement to some aspect of computing.

open source will grow with or without cash money millionaires funding project managers and department leads; thats never been what open source is fundamentally about. Its about a hacker ethos, the drive to solve problems for fame and the challenge. Doing that kind of work can land you a legitimate spot developing the kernel at RedHat, or working on the next Barracuda firewall or netapp filer because you've proven through participation that youre capable and highly skilled. It seems to me the only people who wouldnt benefit from this donation are C levels, management, and people who dont just shut up and hack.

Arguments for $0

[MrKaos]

I use this a lot in my shell scripts, mainly in a prepackaged usage message that I fill out as the script progresses to refer to its name. However you still have to type the name of the script to be able to use it from the shell otherwise $0 won't exist with any meaningful context. Other arguments like $1, $2 or even $* I use getopts - no use going overboard when processing arguments.