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

So presumably.....

[Luthair]

these guys think they should type $0 everytime they checkout source code from the upstream projects where the vast majority of the work actually occurs?

guilt, as advertised on slashdot!

[Austerity Empowers]

$0

TL;DR

[Anonymous Coward]

We 'make' you type 0$, then we write a lengthy blog post about why you're evil and cheating the system for not paying us for our ubuntu clone we slapped a osx knock-off UI on.

They really aren't 'developing' anything, sure putting together a nice interface takes work but they really aren't doing anything a determined user couldn't do themselves. Besides that, do they even send patches up stream? Do they fix security issues or send patches upstream? Or do they just feed off ubuntu and debian?

This is an absolutely disgusting stance and I can't wait to see this distro fade into obscurity.

Re:TL;DR

[MightyMartian]

Mission accomplished...

Wait...

[sycodon]

...create software, offer it for free, and then whine no one is paying you.

I see.

Pay us for other people's work

[SkunkPussy]

Elementary OS' contribution to their own distribution is probably less than 1%. Almost all the effort into writing and packaging the software has been carried out by others. They are standing on the shoulders of giants. Why the fuck should they demand money for other people's work? It is disrespectful to call people cheaters, when they are grabbing money in exchange for other people's work! If anything, that is cheating. Elementary OS are so entitled its untrue.

Re:Pay us for other people's work

[jedidiah]

Any scheme like this should look a little like the payment screen for the humble bundle with some upstream highlights (or perhaps even some randomly generated choices) so that you can divide your money amongst worthy projects actually doing the real work.

A little for the kernel...
A little for the FSF...
A little for X...
Mebbe throw some back at the mother distro...

Re:Pay us for other people's work

[PraiseBob]

You can say this about every product available on every market on earth. Look at the baker- he didn't grind the flour; the miller didn't grow the wheat and sugar cane; the farmer didn't find the seeds growing wild; all of this is the combined efforts of thousands of human generations. Somebody else mined the coal and somebody else turned it into electricity. Somebody else filtered the water. The baker combines all of these things, some that he acquired at cost, and maybe some that are freely given, and makes his final product and sells it. 99+% of the work was done by others, going back in history for thousands of years to reach this current stage. We call it civilization.

We ALL stand on the shoulders of giants, in every profession, in every walk of life. Why are they not allowed to charge for their work when the baker can?

Re:Pay us for other people's work

[im_thatoneguy]

An analysis of the 2.8 million lines of code that were contributed to the Linux kernel between December 24, 2008 and January 10, 2010, reveals 75 percent of Linux code is now written by paid developers. The three biggest Linux code contributors are Red Hat, Intel and IBM.
The most striking aspect of the analysis, however, was where those lines of code originated from. 18% of contributions to the kernel were made without a specific corporate affiliation, suggesting true volunteer efforts. An additional 7% weren't classified. The remainder were from people working for specific companies in roles where developing that code was a major requirement. "75% of the code comes from people paid to do it," Corbet said.

Within that field, Red Hat topped that chart with 12%, followed by Intel with 8%, IBM and Novell with 6% each, and Oracle 3%. Despite the clear commercial rivalry between those players, central kernel development worked well, Corbet noted.
More info at APC.

The Coal Miner was paid to mine coal (by RedHat)
The Hydro-Electric generated electricity because it was built by IBM for the US government.
The water was gathered by Intel to sell more computer chips.
The farmer planted the wheat in a public field because it was cheaper to help plant seeds and pick what he needed than it was to buy flour from a commercial farm and was compensated in reduced price flour.
The baker baked the bread for a restaurant and then gave away the extra for free since in computer world infinite bread is as easy to bake as 1 loaf.
Finally the waiter expects a goddamn tip because they deserve to be compensated for their efforts somehow.

Your analogy breaks down because the majority of Linux development is done by people being paid to develop linux. Those developers expect to be paid. The people who pay them reap compensation for their investment in Linux in various fashions (support contracts, hardware sales etc.) So no it's not outrageous that a consumer product company would use a sales model that works for their business: selling things to people in order to also be compensated.

Linux is not a big volunteer effort, it's mostly a corporate collaboration to cut costs and boost sales.

Paying for something doesn't get you anything

[ewibble]

Others offset it by mining user data and charging companies to target ads to their users

Just because you pay doesn't guarantee anything:

Samsung:http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/11/8017771/samsung-smart-tvs-inserting-unwanted-ads, http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa...

My paid for virus checker, bitdefender pops up adds for me to buy the latest version (before my subscription is up), interrupting games.

By a dvd, go to the movies, have to watch advertisements.

People will try to extract as much money out of you as they can, that is what capitalism is all about, just because you have paid doesn't stop or even encourage them to stop making money out of you in as many ways as they possibly can. I fact I feel it is sometimes the opposite, the more you pay the more they want.

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.

Bounds checked?

[mbstone]

If I enter -$1000 will they credit my PayPal account?

Re:lies

[Wycliffe]

Call it what it is - guilting people into donating by making them more conscious of the fact that they're not donating by making them type $0 into a box so they feel like a piece of crap.

It's not about awareness.

I get this all the time at the checkout. Would you like to donate $1 to save needy children, to save a cat in need,
to promote clean water, etc... I once asked a cashier who actually got the money on a "clean water" campaign
and they couldn't even tell me. I always say no as a matter of course even for organizations that I regularly
donate to. I don't want to encourage them to use that venue.

What's with all the pitchforks?

[Skarjak]

I really don't see what the big deal is here. Sure, they aren't responsible for most of the software in their repositories... like all other distros. They still work to maintain this distribution. If they ask to get paid, what's the matter? If you can have access to a distribution made possible only through hours and hours of hard work at the cost of feeling guilty for a second as you type "0$", I don't think you have any reason to complain, honestly. You're not being forced to pay in any way. There is nothing morally wrong with this. I encourage other developpers to do the same if they want some compensation.

Man, slashdot is really grumpy today.

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.