I thought not, but just last week there was a discussion about someone asking about buying the “Pro” version of their distro, which have them access to… free open source software they could have just downloaded. Had a big (polite) argument with someone about the ethics of this
Distros (ZorinOS) are doing this crap. Shysters will always find a way to fleece people.
I personally don’t mind at all if open source projects want to sell a “pro” version for businesses, as long as it’s still open source. Selling priority troubleshooting and dev attention to issues to businesses seems like one of the less offensive ways to fund open source projects in a capitalist society, imo
I also don’t mind if they are “selling” nothing, or just a supporter icon. As long as they are transparent that that is all you are getting.
That’s pretty much it, right? ZorinOS Pro gives you some more desktop layouts, more wallpapers, and what they call “Zorin Installation Support service”. Basically like buying a hat in a free game.
But the “Advanced productivity tools” one is a bit misleading, apparently it’s stuff anyone can install from the store it just pre-installs some unnamed apps for you.
I don’t mind selling some cosmetic stuff to fund development, the app thing is a bit shady though.
Agree. I wouldn’t even mind it if they were more open about what they’re actually doing, as picking a well working set of apps from the sea open-source apps can have value.
That said, if you read through that site it feels like they want to appear like it’s them who created all that software.
Or for server software it can be funded with support contracts.
Isn’t this basically how Fedora and RHEL are? RHEL is paid for giving you support, updates, etc. While Fedora is FOSS. You just install it and they don’t care what you do with it.
Yes! I completely agree. The distinction is, to me, utterly important: they aren’t selling the software, they’re selling the service. Hell, if they want to sell the option to get your bugs fixed on demand, great! That’s enormously different than taking millions of developer hours spent creating OSS, sticking a label and name on it, and then reselling it as if you made any real contribution to the OSS community.
how the hell do you make something both open source and paid??
The way I was specifically talking about was for the project to be fully open source, but with an optional paid service aimed at businesses that ensures priority attention to bugs and feature requests. I’ve also seen open source projects with paid binaries, most commonly for iOS where it costs the devs money to keep an app on the app store so users can compile it themselves for free or pay for the (still open source) precompiled app. Open source and paid don’t have to be mutually exclusive, although the culture of free like freedom and free like free beer is great and I hope we never lose that.
I mean, that’s kinda like RHEL if you pay for the “self-service” subscription?
But even Red Hat offers that subscription for free for up to 16 machines
Yes, and I have the same opinion about Redhat.
No issue with their actual paid service levels; it costs them to run those, and they’re providing value. Most corporations won’t use software unless they have a telephone number to call when it breaks, and service level guarantees. That’s worth paying for; it’s a service. But the fact that they’re charging for software that includes some that I wrote, and which RHEL got for free, and for which I receive no kickbacks, is inexcusable.
Well, that’s disappointing to learn.
I have gotten popup ads for Ubuntu Pro on stock Ubuntu install.
The difference is that Ubuntu Pro is free, and the ads are only 1 line in the terminal
Pop-up ads are loathsome. It’s nagware. We need to bring back that term, because that’s exactly what we used to call this shit, and that’s exactly what it is.
There is a popup ad when you first install the update that introduces this feature.
I’m pretty sure that both Red Hat Enterprise and SUSE Enterprise require a license key.
Red hat does after 9?
RHEL never did to install it. To get any updates though, you have to provide a contract number.
Edit: 10 might be different, but I don’t think it would be.
That’s right, you pay for support not the binaries and the source code is free under GPL.
Not certain, I haven’t installed red hat in several years.
I started Linux with a physical copy of redhat 5.2 in 2000.
I had an old friend who busted his ass to educate me on computers when I was a kid and I will be forever thankful to him.
For me, my first exposure to Linux was around that same time, but with SuSE. It’s still my go-to distro, even though I’ve installed and used dozens of different ones. Compiling Gentoo over a weekend is a fun experience at least once.
I think I used gentoo years ago. Is that the one that builds and downloads as you install? I’m getting old, it’s been years and I remember a distro that was making headlines with something like that years ago.
My go-to distro for a long time was Mandrake, which became Mandriva. I have no idea what’s going on with that one now.
I’ve been using SteamOS and EndeavourOS recently.
Yeah, Gentoo builds everything from source. Supposed to make it faster, but I didn’t notice enough of a difference to make it worth my while.
Unfortunately, whats scarier to people is if the installer is text or TUI, :0
FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8
What the fuck :O
That’s my CD-Key! Aaaaaa
This is burned into my brain like nothing else.
What’s this a reference to?
Back in the day we all had a pirated copy of windows xp pro (corporate, if I’m remembering correctly).
This was the cd key we all used.
Wait I’m the system administrator, who the hell do I contact??!!
User not in super-sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
The Ultra Sysadmin. Bring the sacrifice.
There’s a typo there so I think it’s fake.
There are also 26 X’s in the boxes.
Now this is podracing
Beat me to it
Great minds think alike
Lol agreed
deleted by creator
check out /etc/machine-id you don’t have to type it
XP
I agree. It’s quite unlikely the setup will finish in 33 minutes. Not really, anyway.
