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Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

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Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#61

Post by bstpierre »

BCM43 wrote: post #52
ctdonath wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as Apple's goal was to be a hardware company, which sold an operating system to help sell hardware, Canonical would do well to sell a, er, canonical hardware configuration for the purpose of selling the OS. One of the debilitating downfalls of OSS OSes is the lack of reliable/assured compatible hardware (video drivers being a notorious examples). Arrange for manufacture of a "reference design" system with a "it…

You mean this? https://www.system76.com/

I have had two machines from them: a netbook and a laptop. (I build my own desktop machines.) Overall they have been decent purchases, but...

The netbook: wireless driver for the builtin never worked. I had to buy (and carry around) a USB wifi stick.

The laptop: fingerprint scanner has never worked.

There may be workarounds, but the whole point of buying from an ubuntu-specific vendor was that I shouldn't have to mess around with figuring out why my hardware doesn't work.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#62

Post by b0rsuk »

I don't see anything wrong with "pay what you want" Ubuntu as long as people who pay don't get special treatment. The easiest way to ensure that would probably be anonymous contributions.

Similarly, certain definite projects like "get X functionality into Y application" could be valid targets for a kickstarter-like projects. Paid-for code released under GPL. Why not ? This measure would be best reserved for unfun tasks, something no one wants to do.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#63

Post by Tichy »

takluyver wrote: post #54
Tichy wrote: post #6

Suppose searching shops from the search bar makes sense: what would be a way to launch it that wouldn't freak out a lot of people? Personally I find the new feature interesting, because I already use the DuckDuckGo !-Notation to search Amazon all the time.

An obvious way is to require some sort of deliberate indication that the user wants shopping results, like a separate pane, or a prefix to the search term. It's a problem largely because it's searching Amazon even when you're just looking for a file on your computer.

Prefix would be good. I guess the Unity way is different keyboard shortcuts (it is possible to limit the search to certain categories). But I won't be able to memorize those.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#64

Post by oftenwrong »

brusch wrote: post #39
pedrocr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea that what Ubuntu does is just some light packaging is pretty demeaning to their true value. Ubuntu really pushed the state of the art in terms of polish for Linux distributions. You can argue how much of the total product value that is but I don't think it's at all reasonable to say "Ubuntu isn't a product" and that it's just a "nice community layer with some high level project management". I'm also curious…

I think Ubuntu moved away from "polish for Linux distributions" some versions ago. This was the time they've started making their own user interface with Unity, they're own shop with I-don't-know-what-it's-called (App center ?) and their own online storage with Ubuntu one. They make decisions you may like or may not like (moving the window controls to the left..) - but at least for me it was time to go - and I don't…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Software_Center

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#66

Post by olalonde »

flatline3 wrote: post #58
olalonde wrote: post #57

I think Kilo Dalton's comment pretty much sums it up: > 1) make a donation > 2) sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping > 3) grab a tasty beverage

What it sums up is some Linux nerds' complete disconnection from reality. 1) Donations aren't a sustainable revenue model, and won't prevent Ubuntu from taking equally user-hostile actions in the future. What they need is a sustainable revenue model where users are the customer. 2) How is this different than the crapware that comes installed with some OEM Windows PCs? How is that a model to be emulated? What happens…

Honestly, what I get from your comment is that you don't like ads. If you don't like them, don't click them: problem solved. I have to grant you that Ubuntu hardware would be awesome but I'm afraid that it might create an incentive to drop support for non-Ubuntu hardware.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#67

Post by wmf »

BCM43 wrote: post #52
ctdonath wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as Apple's goal was to be a hardware company, which sold an operating system to help sell hardware, Canonical would do well to sell a, er, canonical hardware configuration for the purpose of selling the OS. One of the debilitating downfalls of OSS OSes is the lack of reliable/assured compatible hardware (video drivers being a notorious examples). Arrange for manufacture of a "reference design" system with a "it…

You mean this? https://www.system76.com/

System76 doesn't have the brand recognition of Ubuntu, though.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#68

Post by flatline3 »

olalonde wrote: post #66
flatline3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What it sums up is some Linux nerds' complete disconnection from reality. 1) Donations aren't a sustainable revenue model, and won't prevent Ubuntu from taking equally user-hostile actions in the future. What they need is a sustainable revenue model where users are the customer. 2) How is this different than the crapware that comes installed with some OEM Windows PCs? How is that a model to be emulated? What happens…

Honestly, what I get from your comment is that you don't like ads. If you don't like them, don't click them: problem solved. I have to grant you that Ubuntu hardware would be awesome but I'm afraid that it might create an incentive to drop support for non-Ubuntu hardware.

"If you don't like them, don't click them" is a terrible solution, because I don't even want to see them.

Is it so wrong that I don't want "free" things if that means I'm the product and not the customer? Is that really such a hard market opportunity to exploit?

I'd rather pay money to not see them. Problem solved.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#69

Post by wpietri »

dagw wrote: post #2

Already exists: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/get-involved/donate

And is impossible to find.

To find that, you have to go to the home page, click on "community", then "get involved", and then find the little "donate" tab. I went looking the other day and gave up.

Put a friggin' button in the dock on every machine that shows whether you've donated recently. If they can put Amazon affiliate links in the main interface, they can just ask me directly for money.

Re: Dear Canonical: please let me pay for Ubuntu

#70

Post by wpietri »

ivan_krechetov wrote: post #9

Won't happen; by definition. See http://www.ubuntu.com/project "Ubuntu is free. Always has been and always will be." Therefore, would be much better to stop writing link bait posts, but rather go and donate http://www.ubuntu.com/community/get-involved/donate

There's nothing stopping them from charging and offering it for free.
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