Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth” • Hacker News Board

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#71

Post by fdr » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 4:42 AM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #8

fingerprinter wrote: post #4

Holy freakin' hell that is an awful headline. This is a DONATION, nothing more. Canonical is not asking people to pay, it is asking people to donate if they are so inclined. The press releases states that Ubuntu is and always will be free. Use Ubuntu and want to give some money for it? Great. Donate. Now there is a way where previously there was none. Use Ubuntu and don't want to give money? Great. Don't donate. Don'…

The headline doesn't seem awful considering the actual screen which speaks for itself. http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/how-mu... Also, it's not a traditional donation in the Mozilla Firefox sense because you cannot deduct it from your taxes because Canonical is a for-profit commercial organization.

In this form, Canonical overstates an appropriate objective in the tips: support more hardware? How about supporting any, thoroughly?

I have done my best to buy hardware that I thought was to be well supported (on the desktop! because I thought power management would be "too hard", so I've given up on laptops), but as far as I can tell, nobody is home doing the QA and holding back releases (or, by any other means, making sure they work) because of regressions, specifically in the area of hardware/driver issues.

I don't need more half-broken crap. I need at least one thing that does work, all the time, across several releases, for three years at a stretch. I will pay for it. This is not represented among any of their available choices: even the one saying "support more hardware" suggests there is any level of support that is adequate. There is no such thing in end-user Linux-land (and I mean the kernel quite specifically) right now. That's not to fault Linux (although it may deserve it): nobody is withholding releases on the basis of quality on any one integration of hardware.

As much as I despise their corporate philosophical direction, Apple does this very well.

I say these things as a long time Ubuntu user (and still using it) who was pleased with the strides they were making in the mid-2000s, and still thinks they are the only Operating System seriously doing something about about omnibus Free-software usability today. I still have two Ubuntu workstations that are my primary sites of use, but now use it in begrudging concession to my professional needs and personal philosophy: not out of preference in any other dimension, least of which would be "quality."

This makes me sad, but I'm getting too old and impatient to put up with this.

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#72

Post by UntitledNo4 » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

mikelward wrote: post #68

How do I contribute while discouraging Unity? Doubtless they will interpret "Make the desktop more amazing" as an encouragement rather than the opposite.

I'd say that if enough people change the the ratio of their donation so that "Make The Desktop More Amazing" gets $0 while "Better Support For Flavours Like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu" gets the most of the donation, this might help Canonical get the picture.

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#73

Post by sandGorgon » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:32 AM UTC

abraham wrote: post #64

sandGorgon wrote: post #59

So, I use Ubuntu as my daily driver. But, I am deeply conflicted about this. Primarily because I have heard/read that Ubuntu does not spend its money on developers (expecially core, kernel, fs) and rides on Debian and Red Hat. Secondly, until fairly recently, parts of Launchpad were closed source. Third - there are other groups like Postgres, Openssh, etc which need funding more desperately. What will the donation am…

You can select which areas of development your payment goes to. http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/how-mu...

I see that - but it would be nice if they covered which groups exactly would be funded by each item. For example, I am all for the hardware support aspect of Ubuntu - I would personally want to fund superior multi-display support and suspend/resume.

Who are the developers in Ubuntu working on it ? In fact, ARE THERE any developers working on it. I would really appreciate some increased transparency here - because as I see it, there are lots of contenders for my money: including LinuxMint, which IMHO needs money more desperately.

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#74

Post by buro9 » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:53 AM UTC

I saw this yesterday when I was experimenting switching from Linux Mint to Ubuntu on one of my laptops (multi-monitor problem that forums hinted were fixed in latest Ubuntu).

What confused me about that page was this:

"Pay what you think it's worth" is a question based on past experience... you either have no experience and think the value is zero or you already have experience and think it's worth $x.

But then all of the options were very clearly angled towards the future and answering a different question "Where would you like us to invest?".

It baffled me as without downloading and using Ubuntu I couldn't give you an indication of what it is worth to me right now, and I couldn't say which part I felt needed investment in the future. Even if I were a regular user of Ubuntu and was upgrading from one LTS to another, how would I know which bit now needs investment until after I'd seen what has changed?

I also could not see any indication that were I to have slid a slider one way, that this guarantees that is where my money will go. In the UK, organisations that take donations are bound to only use such funds for the purpose in which they've been taken, less reasonable administration costs.

Canonical being based in the UK, does that mean that they are creating different accounts per-slider and ring-fencing the funds solely for that use? I doubted it.

I did the only thing I felt was rational and downloaded without a contribution.

To me a more logical thing would be to ask for a contribution after I knew there was value there.

In my case that means to let me install it, see whether it solves my multi-monitor problem, and then suggest I contribute.

Or it could mean that in the support forums or interfaces if a solution removes pain, ask me for money right then... I'll happily give it.

At those points I know the value and know where I want to see future investment. But at download time? Nah, I know nothing.

If you're going to ask for something at the moment of download then a simple tip jar would do the trick. The question of "Where should we invest in the future?" should only be asked after someone is using Ubuntu.

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#75

Post by pyre » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:54 AM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #66

jakubw wrote: post #5

Presenting this screen before you can actually get the OS does not make much sense for new users. They won't know if "hardware support on more PCs" or "performance optimisations" will be any important for them. It'd be more sensible for this to show up as a built-in screen after you've used Ubuntu for a few months.

"Paying before you can actually get the OS does not make much sense for new users." It does make sense for Windows and OS X users :)

Windows and OSX users aren't asked to itemize their 'contributions' into various buckets.

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#76

Post by jrockway » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 6:22 AM UTC

munchhausen wrote: post #60

jrockway wrote: post #43

"Tip to Canonical - they help make it happen" That's why the packages end in .cpg: "Canonical PackaGe"?

Are you insinuating that Ubuntu is just a Debian with a different name slapped on it? If that is the case, then you must not have used Ubuntu at all. As a Ubuntu user, I like the Ubuntu Software Center and being able to install Skype and Dropbox through it and not having to scour the web for packages compatible with my system. I like some Unity features such as the dash and the HUD, because they greatly simplify disc…

Canonical adds all the fun stuff and Debian adds all the boring stuff. But, you can't have the fun stuff without the boring stuff, and it's easy to argue that Ubuntu would not exist without Debian. Letting the user kick a few bucks back to the Debian Foundation wouldn't be the most horrible thing ever.

(I do use Ubnutu, BTW, but regret the decision on a regular basis. I especially like waiting 15 seconds to get a shell prompt because it's checking for package updates to display while I'm logging in. The 15 seconds after each typo'd command is also enjoyable. "Did you mean to install the package sl?" No. No I did not. Ever. )

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#77

Post by ostso » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 6:33 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #76

munchhausen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you insinuating that Ubuntu is just a Debian with a different name slapped on it? If that is the case, then you must not have used Ubuntu at all. As a Ubuntu user, I like the Ubuntu Software Center and being able to install Skype and Dropbox through it and not having to scour the web for packages compatible with my system. I like some Unity features such as the dash and the HUD, because they greatly simplify disc…

Canonical adds all the fun stuff and Debian adds all the boring stuff. But, you can't have the fun stuff without the boring stuff, and it's easy to argue that Ubuntu would not exist without Debian. Letting the user kick a few bucks back to the Debian Foundation wouldn't be the most horrible thing ever. (I do use Ubnutu, BTW, but regret the decision on a regular basis. I especially like waiting 15 seconds to get a she…

    unset -f command_not_found_handle

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#78

Post by beloch » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 7:19 AM UTC

The donation request doesn't show up if you download Kubuntu. The last I heard Canonical doesn't pay anyone to work specifically on Kubuntu anymore (although Kubuntu users obviously benefit from a great many things Canonical does for Ubuntu). One of the donation categories does include Kubuntu though... Strange.

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#79

Post by stan_rogers » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 7:47 AM UTC

furyofantares wrote: post #67

gabemart wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you think Ubuntu provides you with $X in value but you literally do not have $X to your name, well, I'm not sure how it could be providing $X to you, then. I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. Imagine I have disposable income of $0 and I currently use Ubuntu. By your reasoning, Ubuntu is worthless to me. However, let's say that if you offered me $1 to stop using Ubuntu, I would say say "no". We can safely conclu…

I wouldn't say the person in you example is unable to afford it, $0 disposable income just means you've chosen to spend all your money in other ways or to save it. So I don't think it's related to the question I was responding to.

Sometimes that "choice" is simply to live indoors and eat meagre meals. Oh, and perhaps to pay for the electricity to run the computer, which I suppose could be seen a s optional -- but saving that little bit of money sort of obviates the value of Ubuntu.

(Oh, and in case you were hoping to read this as typical bleeding-heart liberal craptrap, I live in 80 square feet and use a computer that is looking forward to the coming Core2 family of processors. IDE drives and what's a DDR? Is that like RamBus?)

Re: Canonical asks desktop users to “pay what you think Ubuntu is worth”

#80

Post by lucian1900 » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 9:08 AM UTC

dfc wrote: post #35

jiggy2011 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, the issue in particular with "hardware support" is that the biggest problems desktop users seem to run into with Ubuntu is video drivers for nvidia/ATI and it doesn't seem like there's much canonical can do about those anyway.

ATI drivers? The open source ATI drivers have progressed wonderfully recently. I never even flirt with the idea of tainting my desktops or laptops with proprietary drivers. The situation is different with nvidia but I am still happy with the machine I have with an old nvidia card I purchased for mining btc. What problems do people have with the free ATI drivers?

They're ok for anything but games (for which I use windows anyway), but the power management sucks. I get 3-4.5h with the free driver and 6-7h with the blob.