Show Me the Money

As the founder of a modestly successful crowdfunded venture, I applaud the team behind AppCenter, the pay-what-you-want app store for ElementaryOS that, at the time of this writing, has raised $9,570, comfortably meeting its funding target of $8,000.

The market system of incentives is fundamentally changed by Free Software, as the consumer doesn't pay, regardless of how much he or she values the work of the developers. If Canonical, for example, were to start charging for Ubuntu, any number of substitute distros could be installed free of charge in its place. It doesn't matter that Ubuntu is key to the financial success of such Internet behemoths as Amazon Web Services; the marginal cost of a replacement is £0, so the relationship between price and worth is broken.

Canonical can fight back by using Ubuntu to create a market for a new product: its support services. But Canonical can only do this because it's big enough to do so. Small distro developers can't alter the market, so if they want money, they need to ask for it.

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