How much will you pay for Running linux?

[zero244]

Well I paid 90 dollars I think for Linspire but didnt like the CNR or was that CRN. I was trying Ubuntu at the same time and didnt see any real advantage using Linpsire I have to give them credit they gave me my money back.
Now that I have used Ubuntu I would definately pay for it.........I think anything in the 100 dollar range would be worth it.
It would be nice if they spread the wealth around to all the very generous programmers who give us all the great apps and of course the OS itself.

[Motoxrdude]

I would pay like $10 or so, but i would rather just donate.

[cobrn1]

nothing. i love Linux, but being a student means that money is at a premium. between food and Linux? Well....food edges it out.

I couldn't agree more. I love linux, and maybe when I have more money I'll donate some to linux dev, however at the moment I couldn't pay.

could I also point out (the rather dirty fact) that many people who use windows do so for free, so if linux started to charge it would cost them more (or they would resort to piracy just as they do with windows)...

Forcing people to pay is bad. Reminding peopel that it's ok to donate is good.

[Nezing]

cobrn,that is a good point,that probably a lot of people may be using hacked copies of Windows.However,if Microsoft change the way Activation works (sneeky bas$$$ds),then they will have to go to all that trouble,of trying to download "a cure".Never mind the nasties which might sleep in that.As Mark Shuttleworth has said,Ubuntu will always remain free.So download as many copies as you want,and give a friend a copy.Hey,send one to Bill
The Ubuntu community will never have to worry about using pirated copies then,as every "free" download is legit,which is great for us.Give a dollar,pound,Yen,for research.Probably.

[ssam]

mac os x releases have slowed down. its more like a release every 1.5 to 2 years.

i already donate every now and then, so it would not make much difference to pay.

[23meg]

The standards of quality and freedom set by Debian, Red Hat and slackware and maintained in today's Fedora, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE and the like mean that I probably won't ever have to pay a licensing fee to use an OS; nor would I want to.

I would, however, pay whatever reasonable amount I can from my modest income to support free software projects that make up these free distributions. I've donated about 200$ this year to various projects.

[cobrn1]

cobrn,that is a good point,that probably a lot of people may be using hacked copies of Windows.However,if Microsoft change the way Activation works (sneeky bas$$$ds),then they will have to go to all that trouble,of trying to download "a cure".Never mind the nasties which might sleep in that.As Mark Shuttleworth has said,Ubuntu will always remain free.So download as many copies as you want,and give a friend a copy.Hey,send one to Bill
The Ubuntu community will never have to worry about using pirated copies then,as every "free" download is legit,which is great for us.Give a dollar,pound,Yen,for research.Probably.

hum - true, all true.

But, pirates are (almost) always one step ahead, and they would easily get around any increased WGA crap. Especially if it was a half-baked add-on to XP. Just look at vista. THat had WGA baked into the core of the OS, so the pirates upped their game and have released the most fully cracked version of a windows OS ever. I am, of course, talking about the NoPE version (which can be found at a torrent site near you) which doesn't even need activating. Updates work fine, etc...

_ANYWAY_, linux works better free, as does all software (in general).

[lexarrow]

There's no free lunch...somebody pays so the users don't have to. I would definitely donate to keep it free. If a good donation system is set up, open source can become really self sustained.

[sad_iq]

So...we've all installed linux to get rid of Microsoft's ways of squeezing money from us and you people talk about paying(donating should be a good thing thou) linux developers to give better support for some apps or even games that run in Windows?
If I were rich I would invest a fortune in Linux...to improve the way it works...to make things easy...so that many more could escape that Microsoft(TM) 'chroot' they live in...but as I'm poor...and have to do some serious hard work(not computer related) to pay my food, I can't donate at the moment...but I'm trying to help as many people as I can!!! So my vote goes for 0$ payd for a linux distro ... linux is supposed to be free...development should be free...the same should be for the distro!!!

[Kingsley]

I love Linux but wouldn't pay a single cent. Sorry, I'm just cheap . I'd probably even look for a pirated version.