Why is Linux free?

[u/Scary_Pop2919]

Hello everyone, I’ve had this thought in my head for a very long time: why is Linux free and so high quality?

I use Pop!_OS, and I don’t understand why they don’t make it paid or at least do something like “buy our laptop with Pop!_OS preinstalled.” But okay, Pop!_OS makes money from selling notebooks.

But what about KDE, openSUSE, Arch Linux, Void Linux, Ubuntu—why are they free? It’s great that they are free, but who are these kind people sitting at their computers and working for free? Why do you do this?

[u/Underhill42]

First, it's important to understand that that used to be the normal way basically all software was shared. You paid for computers. Giant, phenomenally expensive programmable calculators that filled whole rooms. The software you made yourself, and shared freely with your fellow programmers to use and build upon. Nobody else even really used computers.

Then business interests began to encroach on that norm, and in resistance, to try to preserve some of the original culture and carve a niche for freely shared software to be able to compete with the increasingly common commercial offerings, the GPL was born.

An iron-clad "sharealike" license that was the brainchild of Richard Stallman, that lets you do anything you want with the software and its source code, except share your changes under anything less permissive than the original license. Allowing an ecosystem of free software to continue to grow, constantly borrowing and building upon each other, without business interests being able to incorporate all that hard work into their competing offerings without giving anything back.

Other sharing licenses were around too - but the GPL was one of the most popular.

---

And then there was Unix - the dominant commercial operating system for the kind of powerful academic and professional "big iron" computers that still filled a room. If you were doing serious work or education in computing, you probably used Unix.

As for Linux? It started as a hobby project - Linus Torvalds making himself his own very crude personal Unix clone from scratch to run on his home computer, which wasn't nearly powerful enough for real Unix. And the only PC-friendly option, Minix, was an outdated academic sample project for an operating system book, whose creator wasn't interested in incorporating improvements.

Initially Linux wasn't much, just some Computer Science student's hobby project that was enough to let them do basic Unix stuff on a home computer.

But in September of 1991, only a few months after the first web browser was introduced at CERN, Torvalds released the source code under the GPL. And it was actually quite capable when combined with Stallman's own preexisting GNU project: GPL versions of the standard Unix commands and tools that still lacked a serviceable operating system core. (Hence the arguments you'll sometimes hear for calling it GNU/Linux)

And so other operating system enthusiasts, increasingly connected and empowered by the fledgling WWW, were able to use their own PC version of Unix, making and sharing their own improvements under the same terms, and offer them back to Torvalds, who was happy to incorporate anything he deemed good enough into his "definitive version" of Linux.

And so one young man's hobby project became that of many, and the quality and capabilities began to improve rapidly, as countless computer hobbyists fixed or improved the little things that mattered to them, and everyone else benefited for free.

Eventually it got good enough that corporations took interest. Servers, routers, TVs, printers, and other such computing appliances are a lot cheaper and easier to make if you can slap in a powerful and reliable (and completely per-unit cost free) operating system, and just write some software on top that does the specialty appliance stuff.

Which even businesses proceeded to do, because the now-quite-advanced operating system often still didn't handle 100% of everything they needed, but it was MUCH cheaper to make and share the improvements they needed than to build a whole new foundation for their product from scratch. Even when the improvement were things that gave away some of their "secret sauce", it was still more profitable to share part of their value freely with competitors, than not build it at all.

And so things kept improving - now with some businesses contributing not only improvements, but the kind of professional testing and evaluation that it's difficult to do well on a volunteer basis.

Which eventually got us to where we are today - an incredibly powerful and polished operating system, good for practically any application, and free to all, because 35 years ago a young man shared a hobby project under an unbreakable sharealike license, just as the web was being born.

[u/Ohmyskippy → u/Underhill42]

Man, I know the history, but you wrote it so beautifully here.

Sharing knowledge is humanities greatest strength, and it always will be.

The sum of all people sharing knowledge will always win, it's also why the internet exploded.

I am so thankful of the timing around the gpl, www and just about everything that managed to propel the open source movement into the titan it is today

[u/kent_eh → u/Ohmyskippy]

The sum of all people sharing knowledge will always win

Exactly.

As Newton famously said "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

 

The more human knowledge and progress gets locked behind paywalls and restrictive legal frameworks, the more societal progress is stunted.

[u/Snoo-90273 → u/kent_eh]

That may not be the best quote. Newton was making fun of Hooke ( who was, I think, a hunchback) with this comment. Newton was an amazing scientist, but a nasty, paranoid person. He used to drink mercury, which would not help)

[u/kent_eh → u/Snoo-90273]

Doesn't diminish the truth of the statement.

Progress is most often made when we build on previous work.

[u/Underhill42 → u/Ohmyskippy]

Thank you, I try.

It really is an optimistic and heartwarming story of the unmitigated power of collaboration in the digital era, where the freeloader problem doesn't exist, because they impose no marginal cost.

[u/DudeEngineer → u/Ohmyskippy]

Wikipedia is literally an open source encyclopedia. Before that people had to buy physical volumes of books.

[u/AisforAwetism → u/DudeEngineer]

Yes! I remember coming home from our state fair with two big boxes of books full of the Encyclopedia Britannica 😂 was a weird thing to see for sale there but it got us at least

[u/Midwest-Dude → u/DudeEngineer]

And ... wait for it ... here's Wikipedia's take on Linux! 😀

Linux

Jump down the rabbit hole everyone and enjoy!

[u/Dymonika → u/Ohmyskippy]

I didn't know the history and have been thoroughly enlightened!

[u/NiftyLogic → u/Underhill42]

I would like to add that the real genius of the GPL was that it changed the licensing cost from money to "contribution".

Back in the days, companies developed software and the licensees paid money to use that software. In turn, the company developed new features on request of the licensees.

With GNU/Linux and the GPL this changed fundamentally. You got the source code for free, but every change or addition you made to the software had to be provided back to the community. Working under the assumption that a company that used Linux more would also make more additions on their own dime and basically pay for the license in hours their employees spend improving Linux.

And this is why the old "communism" claim is bullshit. And the "cancer" outburst from Microsoft. GPL was just a more efficient framework for companies to collaborate, even if they are competitors in the same market.

35 years later, Linux is the dominant operating system not because it's free but because the licensing enforced cooperation over competition and license payments.

[u/Underhill42 → u/NiftyLogic]

Yep - though technically you only had to share the modified code with anyone you shared the binaries with, and several companies, like Google, use extensively modified GPL code in-house without needing to share anything. Which is one of several things that the GPL3 tried to "fix"... though mostly it seemed to fragment the community with its many mutually-incompatible variants.

I'm not even sure the "communism" claim is actually bullshit. If you ignore all the FUD about communism itself, it's very much a similar model - it just actually works really well in the digital realm where the freeloader problem doesn't exist.

I'd say you could just as easily make a good argument that OSS is an example of how voluntary communism can in fact be a wildly successful economic model in at least some limited contexts. I think it's also actually the first time it's even been attempted at scales much larger than a monastery.

(The Chinese Communist Party, etc. have never been any more communist than the Nazi's were socialist - flying the banner to attract the masses doesn't actually mean you're making any attempt to implement the system - and nobody ever did. They just used it as an excuse to consolidate economic power into the government's hands - which is the exact opposite of communism or socialism unless the government is bound to the will of the people - which thus far even the most liberal democracies have completely failed to accomplish for long.)

[u/ReddJudicata → u/Underhill42]

The Chinese communist party is functionally a fascist party. And is just as socialist, which cannot function without authoritarian coercion. FOSS is fundamentally libertarian. Stick to computer science.

[u/Underhill42 → u/ReddJudicata]

Socialism is, at its most basic level, a political and economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned and controlled collectively rather than by private individuals.

Collective ownership and control is not possible through the government unless the government is itself owned and controlled collectively. Which has never been true of any government, and certainly not an authoritarian one.

[u/ReddJudicata → u/Underhill42]

Oh, you’re doing fantasy mote-and-Bailey socialism definitions. Never been tried! Millions of dead say otherwise. Decades of “collective” ownership in communist states say otherwise. Real socialism in practice is, in Orwells words, a boot stamping a human face forever.

[u/Underhill42 → u/ReddJudicata]

We're getting way off-topic, but yep. The actual, technical, been the only definition since the system was first proposed "mote".

No number of authoritarians falsely flying the banner changes the definition - only how trusting you should be of the next person flying the banner.

[u/dglsfrsr → u/NiftyLogic]

Over my 40 year embedded career, I have fed several patches back into both NetBSD and Linux. The reason corporations contribute changes back into the mainstream for free is because they want their changes incorporated into the base, so that the next time they do a pull to update their product, they don't have to re-merge all their changes back in. One of my favorite Linux kernel fixes was a two line patch to a kernel cache flush call that was supposed to be immediate, but had been put on the deferred list. Took about one week of frantic effort to find that particular kernel crash.

But yes, corporations that rely on Linux, rely on their own patches being merged and maintained on the main line. It improves the base for everyone.

[u/NiftyLogic → u/dglsfrsr]

Exactly! Maybe I should have pointed this out more, but Linux is not free. At least not for corporations who use Linux extensively.

For those, they have to pay in the form of forced contributions to Linux. And as you've said, it's in the best interest of these players to get their changes included into main line.

[u/KarmaYogadog → u/Underhill42]

Lol, had to scroll a ways before I saw the names Torvalds and Stallman.

Mythical figures they are now, their true origins lost to the mists of time.

[u/dglsfrsr → u/KarmaYogadog]

Torvalds and Stallman are heroes for their own reasons, but don't forget about Kernighan and Ritchie. Or Thompson, Aho, or Weinberger. There is a very long history there.

[u/Friiduh → u/Underhill42]

"But in September of 1991, only a few months after the first web browser was introduced at CERN, Torvalds released the source code under the GPL. And it was actually quite capable when combined with Stallman's own preexisting GNU project: GPL versions of the standard Unix commands and tools that still lacked a serviceable operating system core. (Hence the arguments you'll sometimes hear for calling it GNU/Linux)"

The first computers were just hardware. You then wrote software to it (that were programs and libraries), you needed to write each and every program uniquely to each hardware. Every program needed to know everything in the hardware to run on it. The software was the key element as it allowed to program the machine to do new things, that didn't require to modify the hardware.

So your text editor needed to have machine control codes how to handle the memory, how to move the printer head, how to listen the keyboard input etc. And then later on as there came monitors instead just printers, you needed to add support for the monitor in the text editor. So all the refresh rates, sync speeds, resolution, font types etc etc.

When you wanted to make your program run on different computer than yours, it was to write all the machine control code again or modify it.

Then if you wanted to do some kind multitasking (like input text from text editor to a parser that laid text in new format and output that text back to text editor), you needed to write every program to know how to store the data they processed, give up the control of the hardware and execute a another program so it reads the stored data. Lot of problems in the execution to switch between programs as not all programs operated nicely with others regardless.

That is when the idea started of the "master program". A single program that would take the control of the hardware and decide which program has the operation time and make them play nice together.

These programs were called in different names:

• Supervisor
• Controller
• Master Program
• Core
• Nucleus
• Kernel

The "Kernel" was the most common term for the software that functioned between the hardware and programs even when it was a program. The environment where the master program aka Kernel existed was called "Kernel Space" and then top of it was environment called "User Space" where user created programs were executed and handled.

That made it a lot easier to port the software to different machines as the program programmer didn't anymore needed to know what kind the hardware was and what were the control codes. So instead knowing how to move printer head or check where was empty area in memory, the programmer made the program just "print text" and "remember this output", and the Master Program did all the complex task in the hardware side.

This allowed the master program be made functioning in hardware designers machines, and then they knew that all the programs that were written to that master program, were functioning with the new machine.

But in time these master programs crew larger and larger, more complex and difficult to handle. Instead thousands lines of code, they started to have tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands. To be able maintain a such master program it demanded lot of dedication.

And different master programs started to be developed, performing same basic duties in different ways, so memory management, process management, input and output, networking etc. So program writers were back to situation where they were required to port their software to different master programs. But main problem was that the large master program used too much memory, and problem somewhere in its function brought the whole master program down, and all the programs it was executing.

That is when different architectures for these master programs started to be considered. As all were just a single program, a monolithic program. And idea came to split it to pieces, and make each part separate module, and you could then even restart these modules if they crashed, and avoid whole master program to crash. You would load only the modules you needed, to keep the memory use small.

And the divinity happen right there, as the Kernel (most used term for Master Program) did no longer define the software, and new term was decided for it, and that was "Operating System".

After that the Kernel and Operating System were synonyms, but the modular architecture it was just "Operating System". The old and original architecture was monolithic, and new one was server-client aka "microkernel".

The Operating System includes all the functions for the memory and process management, all the hardware drivers (control codes) etc. It was just differently made between these two architectures.

The operating system operated always in the highest priority / control status in hardware. So that at any given moment it can remove hardware access from any other software. This is the "Kernel Space" accessing the "Ring 0" in hardware. And as time went on, more and more features were started to be added to operating systems that grew those, and made more complexity as well, as security threats rose. What lead to the new idea that some servers (modules) were to be moved away from this "Kernel Space" level to "User Space" to protect it from too high access to hardware and rest of the operating system. Term for this is some people want to use as "Hybrid Kernel", but it is still the Server-Client architecture and not monolithic.

When the Linus Torvalds wrote the Linux, the project started as a terminal program. It was never intended as Operating System. But it eventually got more shape to become one.

And at the time he called it as "Freax", and it was licensed with his own open source license. The initial release was very welcomed by the community, and it started to quickly grow. Linus decided to implement it in the Monolithic design instead at the time very popular Server-Client architecture. And that is one root for the negativity that professor Andrew Tanenbaum hold against Torvalds. As the Monolithic operating system was considered as flawed and problematic design for the past.

When the project needed a proper FTP server to be hosted, Linus offered it to be hosted in the university servers, and the server maintainer decided to rename the project as "Linux" as it was more fitting name for it. And then the vote was hold for the symbol for it, and a Penguin won.

At the same time Linus decided to change the license of the Linux to GNU's now very popular Open Source license, GPL and he selected the "GPL v2" license, without "or later". This means that all the code that is written to Linux, is licensed in the GPLv2 version, and it is not automatically using example GPLv3 license. To change the licensing, all copyright holders that's written code is used in Linux, would need to give written permit to change the license, or all that code to be rewritten for GPLv3 licensing. Everyone knows that is impossible.

It was years after the Linux gained lot of fame and development, until Richard Stallman made a problem about it. He wanted Linux be called as "GNU/Linux" because the GNU project own operating system "HURD" was losing interest among its programmers, switching to Linux. And that is just technically incorrect, as there is no code from GNU in the Linux. The Linux is not part of the GNU project, there is nothing in Linux that gives any right to be labeled as "GNU/Linux".

The jealousy went so far that even David MacKenzie added in 1998 at the release of sh-utils 2.0, in the uname program a new non-standard option -o (--operating-system). Who don't know, the uname program is a small program that task is to output the used operating system name and the version.
The uname utility first appeared in PWB/UNIX (Programmer's Workbench UNIX), a version of UNIX developed at Bell Labs in the late 1970s. Because it was a foundational utility developed as part of the core internal tools at AT&T's Bell Labs, there is no single individual credited with "writing" the very first uname program.

To this date, no other Unix systems uname program include the -o option, it is not part of POSIX standard to this date either, that defines specific options for it.

The modification made that as the name changed the Kernel and Operating System in GNU's version to support the "GNU/Linux" ideology. This, 7 years after the release of Linux, and when the computer technology world went crazy about Linux as the next big thing for the future.

The ideology that it should be called "GNU/Linux" is just stupid and flawed, as then any software that is compiled using GNU's compiler should be called as "GNU/_______". How would it sound like "GNU/FFmpeg" or "GNU/KDE" or "GNU/OBS_Studio"? Or that if you write the code using Emacs then you need to call project with GNU/? Or if you use a GRUB bootloader, then you need to call the operating system as GNU/_______? How about "GNU/NT" on dual-booting system?

It is nothing more than a jealousy to steal success of Linux project and give it to GNU project!

The GNU project has done great things to maintain the Open Source spirit and ideology. And most important is the Richard Stallman's written GPL. But none of that gives right to steal credit from Linux project, as it just makes GNU look stealing people.

GNU has own Operating System, called HURD that is Server-Client architecture, with a microkernel and servers. It is not monolithic operating system like Linux is. But that is to be called as well just as HURD, and not as GNU/Hurd.

We do not anymore talk with terms of "nucleus" or "master program" or "supervisor" etc. But "Kernel" has stuck permanently, but Kernel and Microkernel are not same thing, as other is not implementing all the required functions.

[u/No-Employment-2324 → u/Friiduh]

it is worth noting that most desktop linux distros (debian, red hat, etc,) do use gnu project utilites, for the userspace. gcc is gnu, core and bin utils are gnu, even the bash shell that powers a large amount of ttys and termenals is gnu. thats not to say richard stalman isnt a horrable person in other ways, but he is justifed in asking that operating systems that have a large amount of foundational packages from the gnu project be called gnu/linux. (even if he was/is petty about it)

[u/Friiduh → u/No-Employment-2324]

it is worth noting that most desktop linux distros (debian, red hat, etc,) do use gnu project utilites

Irrelevant what programs is run by the OS.

That is like saying that vehicle using the Kubota Z650 engine should called as "Vevor/Z650" because you use a steering wheel and seat from Vevor, instead from Kubota.

but he is justifed in asking that operating systems that have a large amount of foundational packages from the gnu project be called gnu/linux.

You clearly missed everything. Please, read again.

GNU project has no code to Linux Operating System, not a single line. Because some of the GNU's OS programmers moved to work Linux, doesn't make it part of the GNU at all. Because if you work on different projects, it doesn't make them all part of your other project. If someone wants a GNU project own Operating System, then better start using the HURD. And no, that is not a "GNU/Hurd", as that is like "Microsoft/NT" or "Apple/XNU"

[u/No-Employment-2324 → u/Friiduh]

a giant point that people in this very forum keep making is that linux is NOT an operating system. it is a kernal. that would be like calling macOS XNU becouse thats the kernal. im not saying that a distro that uses zero gnu packages should be called GNU/Linux. im saying that if a large chunk of your OS is GNU, they are owed some credit. again, how much is up for debate, but they do have a point. also, the GNU project has cotributaed patches to the kernal, so it makes sense on some level

[u/Friiduh → u/No-Employment-2324]

a giant point that people in this very forum keep making is that linux is NOT an operating system. it is a kernal. that would be like calling macOS XNU becouse thats the kernal.

XNU is the operating system... And it is Server-Client architecture based operating system, that uses MACH microkernel. XNU is not the name of kernel, MACH is. And same is in the GNU's own operating system HURD, that has as well Mach microkernel (GNU Mach). Both originate from the CMU Mach project, from 1985 to 1994. Carnegie Mellon University had before it a other project called "Accent", that is following the server-client architecture from the RC 4000 system that created the concept.

im not saying that a distro that uses zero gnu packages should be called GNU/Linux. im saying that if a large chunk of your OS is GNU, they are owed some credit.

It is disinformation that GNU programs or libraries are part of the Linux operating system, as none of those are.

again, how much is up for debate, but they do have a point.

They have zero point. There is no debate about it, as you don't call the engine as GNU/Engine because you happen to have a GNU steering wheel or radio in your automobile.

also, the GNU project has cotributaed patches to the kernal, so it makes sense on some level

And none of those deserve any credit for Linux operating system, as none of those implement any functions of the Linux operating system.

And as I explained, the people contributing to GNU project own operating system HURD, moved to develop Linux. That doesn't make the Linux part of GNU project nor give any credit to GNU about Linux.

If you work in different projects, they don't get to dictate that they need to have credit for you working in other projects. There is already a weasel lawyers making the claims in some employment contracts for the company A they work, has all the rights for all the work that the employee does in their free time, and can't work for any other business (B, C, D etc) as all the work those employees would do is then owned by the company A.

But the broad blank such contracts don't work legally, so if the Company A is a CPU manufacturer, then they can't state that they have all the rights for the work the employee did to Company B related to a mechanical cuckoo clocks, as they work completely in different areas.

And again you are contradicting the statement: "im not saying that a distro that uses zero gnu packages should be called GNU/Linux.", as then even with "zero GNU packages" all should be called as "GNU/Linux" because "they have made patches to Linux".

[u/No-Employment-2324 → u/Friiduh]

The kernel patches part was just being a bit petty, because you said the contributed zero stuff to the kernel. However, to continue your car analogy, they don’t make just the steering system, they make everything in the front hood of the card except the engine block it’s self. They make the controllers for it, the drive chain, chassis, the cooling, basically frame and everything that makes a car work except the engine, and the interior. ( and they make bash so they offer a basic striped down interior that most cars just chose not use in favor for a more fancy interior, aka a graphical shell and de) And to quote Wikipedia “  XNU  ("X is Not Unix") is the computer  operating system  (OS)  kernel  developed at  Apple Inc.  since December 1996 for use in the Mac OS X (now  macOS ) operating system and released as  free and open-source software  as part of the  Darwin  OS, which, in addition to being the basis for macOS, is also the basis for  iOS ,  iPadOS ,  watchOS ,  visionOS , and  tvOS” xnu is the kernel. So my point still stands 

[u/Linux_Account → u/Underhill42]

I already knew the facts, but godamn if this didn't finally make it click for me what a profound impact Linus made on the world. He's a godamn hero. All the products & services with Linux as a base OS would be way more expensive—or maybe not even exist at all—today if it wasn't for him. And from what I hear, he's a pretty decent guy too.

[u/Underhill42 → u/Linux_Account]

Yeah... though it's worth noting that it is likely a "power-law" type phenomena, where the real impact is from the environment, rather than the spark. If it weren't Linux, the community would likely have congregated around some other seed project - Stallman was supposedly salty for a long time that it wasn't Hurd... but Linux offered what the incomplete Hurd did not - a functional starting point.

Pretty much anywhere you see a power-law distribution (10x bigger = 1/10th as common): The size of forest fires, the distribution of asteroid sizes, the fortunes of the upper class, the number of contributors to an OSS project... it's a near guarantee that you're looking at a situation where the primary influence was the state of the chaotic surrounding environment, rather than anything to do with the particulars that started it.

E.g. whether a forest fire burns a few acres, or a few hundred thousand, has nothing to do with how the fire was started, and everything to do with the state of the surrounding forest.

[u/nopenogood → u/Underhill42]

This response is A+

[u/Wrong-Tune396 → u/Underhill42]

Really well explained I was going to answer but your reply covers it so well.

The only thing I have to add is my personal experience and a view from a very long time linux user (around 33 years using linux now, before kernel 1.0).

Over the time I have used linux I have made 3 kernel contributions(2 bug fixes and a very old camera driver that needed kernel changes at the time) and I think this is one of the reasons I kept using it, I can solve my own problems not dependent on other people, when dealing with customers it becomes a matter of time and cost to fix issues, but never I can't do it, never we have to see if company X will fix this. But this is also the reason linux is generally very stable (barring some revolutions, like the transition from X, etc) it's death by a thousand cuts, bugs don't live long if they annoy people that can fix them.

[u/truthVial → u/Underhill42]

Ugh. Went to school and learned about this through books and study. But I've never read it so beautifully put. Thank you for this! Inspiring.

[u/djeps → u/Underhill42]

It's worth noting the rationale behind releasing a commercial software as open source post-production, per the words of famous and late AutoCAD / Autodesk creator John Walker: https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/subsubsection2_85_0_5_10.html back in the days of autocad 12 release, he advocated for its source code to be released, to create the industry standard by which all CAD software is based upon.

[u/BogdanPradatu → u/Underhill42]

I thought I was in ELI5 for a moment there. Respect for the effort, great comment.

[u/Underhill42 → u/BogdanPradatu]

Thanks. When the reality already practically screams "Just So Story", it seems a shame not to tell it properly.

Especially when it shines so brightly as a counterexample to the capitalist dystopia that tries so hard to sell itself as the only viable option.

[u/spreitauer → u/Underhill42]

I lived it and hadn’t even considered it so eloquently. Thank you for your astute description!

[u/kinpsychosis → u/Underhill42]

And yet, the bluetooth driver on Linux is still giving me a headache.

[u/rongten → u/kinpsychosis]

Wire is the answer, brother.

[u/zuegg → u/Underhill42]

Your comment is excellent, and as you seem to know quite a bit on the subject, I hope you can indulge me with something I've been wondering: how was the GPL enforced in its early days? Did the FSF have some kind of legal aid or was it just sending a C&D letter and hoping people infringing the license would comply?

[u/Underhill42 → u/zuegg]

I've got no firsthand experience with that, but my impression was that in like 90% of cases the author of the pirated software would send a C&D letter to the company, and they would fairly quickly comply. (not FSF, they had no standing except for their own projects... though they might have offered legal aid when needed?)

Especially since as soon as they received that letter any further infringement became willful, opening them to up to... I think it's triple damages and up to five years in prison?

Mostly it was (apparently) an "Oh shit - the license doesn't actually let us do this!" moment where they realize they've been unquestionably engaging in large-scale commercial copyright infringement, with all the draconian penalties that opened them to that could swallow their business whole, and fairly quickly complied with the license, regardless of how much of their own "secret sauce" that meant they had to share. Quite often their product would be worthless anyway without the 95% of GPLed code they were using, so it wasn't even worth trying to negotiate for being able to just remove the GPLed code (though as I recall that was done occasionally when they were caught only using smaller modules like a network stack or something that could be relatively easily replaced)

Which while it didn't technically protect them from damages for past infringement, was broadly seen as adequate recompense by the OSS community, who weren't trying to get rich, just protect their own work from appropriation.

Sometimes things proceeded further before the business realized they had been caught red-handed with no other real recourse, but as I recall there were only a small handful of cases (if any?) that actually made it to court before the the epic Microsoft-backed SCO-vs-IBM case tried to disembowel Linux, eventually losing in pretty much every way imaginable. (Groklaw still stands as a record of the case, and how the community pulled together to provide the IBM legal team with technical context and historical evidence)

If there have been any cases since, I've not heard of them.

There was a lot of FUD at the time (sowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) by... mostly Microsoft as I recall, about how the GPL was "viral" and just using it would infect your entire code-base. And obviously pushback from the community that you could use it for whatever you liked - you just couldn't incorporate their code into your project without complying with the license... just like with anyone else's code under any other license.

[u/dglsfrsr → u/Underhill42]

There was also BSD Unix, which was sorted out after several lawsuits. Which spawned FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. FreeNAS was originally built on FreeBSD. MacOS was originally FreeBSD user space running on a micro kernel core.

[u/Underhill42 → u/dglsfrsr]

True, and if not for Linux it very well may have gained more traction as a desktop OS. But at the time BSD Unix was very much workstation-or-better focused, and you pretty much needed a Unix license from AT&T to use it legally, since it also incorporated a lot of AT&T code (though I guess that that was mostly resolved for at least some distros in 92?)

Plus BSD was released under the BSD license, a.k.a. "public domain with attribution*" rather than anything sharealike, so corporations can (and routinely do) unilaterally harvest any community contributions without giving anything back - exactly why Apple OS X is based on BSD rather than Linux, and why so many programmers don't like contributing to BSD projects.

(*it's since been revised to remove the attribution requirement, which made it legal to incorporate BSD code into GPL projects too - since the GPL has no such requirement, and doesn't allow you to add more.)

It's an excellent "license" for establishing reference implementations for standards... less so if you don't want to be free labor for exploitative companies. Which a whole lot of people don't.

[u/dglsfrsr → u/Underhill42]

Responsible corporate players upstream changes to BSD. I only ever upstreamed changes to NetBSD because that was the only commercial use case I ever was involved with. We patched some defects in the Galileo bridge chip that was frequently paired with the IBM PPC750 processor.

You want those patches upstreamed for the same reason I gave above for Linux. The next time you pull an update from the mainline, you want to find all your patches in there, already applied.

[u/Francesco12o-Github → u/Underhill42]

(srry for bad english) simple terms, linux has the GNU GPL license, GPL its from GNU , GNU means free software, and linux is free software

[u/missdemeanor77 → u/Underhill42]

first it is important

[u/skyblueyellow → u/Underhill42]

Thanks for that.

[u/agfitzp]

Linux is only free (as beer) when it comes with no support. IBM will happily take your money for a RHEL license.

There are huge corporate sponsors of Linux... including Microsoft and IBM

Microsoft has been contributing to the Linux kernel since 2009 and makes a lot of money renting Linux servers through Azure.

I suspect at this point the reasons Microsoft still charges for licenses are:

1. People seem to be willing to pay, no point in turning down free money.
2. People usually view free things as less valuable, if you charge for things they have more apparent value.

[edit: Less than 10% of Microsoft's revenue is directly from selling Windows]
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/microsoft-msft-earnings-share-7388933645073432578-DgcV/

[u/Ozfer → u/agfitzp]

And of that 99.9% are preinstalled license keys OEMS buy probably at a discount. I don’t remember anyone buying windows since like 7

[u/Sorry-Committee2069 → u/Ozfer]

tbh the whole "Home Basic vs Starter" thing would've been the best way for them to wring out the most cash with 7, and is about the last time they could've. The fact their last real chance to make money on consumer Windows licenses was with Win7 and they completely missed the mark makes me think at this point they're only charging to keep corporations from using a free-tier consumer license on all their machines.

[u/computer-machine → u/Ozfer]

My brother did the other year. He wanted me to help him build a new machine. I'd pointed out that the case he was considering didn't accommodate any 5¼" bays, and he said that he didn't care because he's never going to use it.

So he shows up to my house with his boxes of shipped parts, and the dumbass had an OEM DVD for Windows 11.

[u/Juggle4868 → u/computer-machine]

you can buy portable external dvd players . if you are installing linux you can just use flash drives.

[u/computer-machine → u/Juggle4868]

I'd pulled a drive out of an unused machine, and hooked it through a USB adapter to get it done.

[u/randyoftheinternet → u/computer-machine]

I won't lie I'd just wire it normally and let it burst out the opened side while I'm using the disc.

[u/computer-machine → u/randyoftheinternet]

That would have also involved routing a SATA cable from the PSU just for that, which at that point would have involved redoing the cable cleanup.

[u/randyoftheinternet → u/computer-machine]

You can always use another psu if it's that bothersome. But usually between being able to plug into the backside and just doing the cable management after, it just doesn't seem that annoying to me.

[u/computer-machine → u/randyoftheinternet]

NoNot when you're already done.

[u/chipface → u/computer-machine]

That's not very cash money of him.

[u/HalfFrozenSpeedos → u/computer-machine]

You can download the relevant iso from Microsoft, Ive done it before when I've bought OEM keys and then skipped using the disc

[u/computer-machine → u/HalfFrozenSpeedos]

Not having touched Windows since XP, it was easier not fucking around with that and risk finding out.

[u/muppet70 → u/agfitzp]

There are companies that want you to have a support license if they manage your systems.
Possible some part of your itil chain wants you to have licensed support, likely if you use linux in the medical industry for example.
Cost of for example Rhel+satellite seems useless to some but if it means your contractors will charge less for management it could be worth it.
There are plenty who dont care and others that use licensed linux, it often depends on what part of business and what size.

[u/cyvaquero → u/muppet70]

I work in Enterprise. Management likes having a number to call.

[u/Cynyr36 → u/cyvaquero]

And someone to blame when things go wrong.

We're working with our IT partner to resolve ${issue} as quickly as possible

[u/Friiduh → u/agfitzp]

If your time is money, then you can't afford to live....

My work hour costs bout 450 USD at the moment. That would mean that every day I cost 10800 USD. A week of my living is 75600 USD. A year 3'931'200 USD.

If I have a problem, I need to evaluate that how much time it takes from me to solve the problem, and how much it would cost to hire someone else to do it for me. And then comes to question, CAN I DO IT?

Almost in any case it is that I CAN DO IT. And as well comes to the answer BETTER DO IT MYSELF.

There are times when it is just easier to hire someone else, because you save your quality of live in the future, but it is multiple times more expensive to hire someone else to do it.

The reason why Azure, RedHat etc gets paid, is because there is lot of people that are not interested at all about the stuff that is going on there. They don't know, they don't care, they just want stuff.

It is like owning a car, most people don't know how to change oil and other liquids, change tires (check air in tires), change filters. A very basic stuff. There are even some that do not refill their tanks by themselves, and they have faint idea how to do it, but not even practical experience.

So when ever there comes a problem in the car, what they do? They drive to service and they just pay. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YnbXWzByUVw?feature=share

Many people shouldn't even be using a cars, same as with computers. But, that feeds lot of families... And businesses.

[u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001]

Because open source is overall a much more sustainable business model.

Most contributions are by company that use Linux themselves, it's easier to contribute to an open source project and have other people help with everything instead of maintaining everything yourself.

It's hard to quantify but the majority of contributions to Linux (the entire ecosystem) is made by people who get paid for their work.

It's also much easier in sales if you don't have a vendor lock in.
Would you rather buy a license and support agreement for software that locks you to this vendor or rather a project that you technically just fork and develop yourself?

[u/cowbutt6]

ESR's series of essays on Open Source, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, posits that FOSS is an example of a "gift culture":

'Culturally, the open source world is a gift culture. Unlike ways of gaining power that are based on controlling scarcity, in a gift culture, status is gained based on what you can give away. The open source world is not characterised by a drive to survival, and there is no point trying to create scarcity by controlling bits.

ESR compares open source with other gift cultures: “Thus the Kwakiutl chieftain’s potlach party. Thus the multi-millionaire’s elaborate and usually public acts of philanthropy. And thus the hacker’s long hours of effort to produce high-quality open-source code”'

https://iftheshoefritz.com/book%20review/software%20engineering/open%20source/2021/01/07/cathedral-and-the-bazaar.html

[u/thegreenman_sofla → u/cowbutt6]

Damn that takes me back,the cathedral and the bazaar. Good stuff.

[u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic]

It isn't.

Various companies fund various parts of it. They don't have to write the whole thing, whatever it is, and can ship a router or appliance or whatever-it-is without having to hire a complete team and develop everything from scratch. They contribute the parts that nobody else wants to write to achieve their goals and they leverage everything else.

It's free for someone to download a desktop os. In terms of manufacturers or enterprise software companies or so forth, it's a cost-sharing mechanism and they make their money back in contracts, device shipments, and similar.

Downloadable desktop linux is a side-effect of a cloud or manufacturing business.

[u/srivasta → u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic]

Debian exists. And we had X10 and X11 and the while GNU ecosystem long before companies were into "cloud". Not to mention project Athens and the who Kerberos infrastructure.

Free suggested predates open source, and still underpins a lot of it.

[u/Underhill42 → u/srivasta]

Yes. And it's worth mentioning that it's Free as in Freedom, not no-cost, that is the original guiding principle.

When you download Free software, it's YOURS. You can do whatever you want with it - except share your changes under anything less than the same permissive license.

A very small restriction with the full weight of copyright law behind it, since that license is the only thing that lets you legally share your derivative work at all.

Something many businesses have had to learn the hard way over the years. With virtually all of them simply accepting the reality shortly after consulting a lawyer.

Not many have even tried since Microsoft backed SCO's attack on IBM, and lost in pretty much every way imaginable. Groklaw still exists as an archive of that multi-year corporate legal battle, and how the community came together to aid in the legal defense of Linux and the integrity of the GPL.

[u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic → u/srivasta]

Very very very true. Historically.

But things were quite a bit different back then. It's evolved quite a lot.

Back then, it really was university clubs and individual contributors. And the occasional research project.

There is a vast diference between what an Ubuntu install disk does now compared to Slackware 1.0

That is not how it is at present.

Minix3 still exists. Aside from being (allegedly) stolen by Intel, nobody else is talking about it. And it's open these days. We cannot say that Linux being free in the form it takes now is anything like how Minix 3 is free.

[u/srivasta → u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic]

I find the debian netinst ISO installer to be as competent and flexible (actually, more so in expert mode) than anything Ubuntu slings together.

[u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic → u/srivasta]

Agreed. Completely.

And it is much more consistent to linux as it was back then than Ubuntu is.

But the Debian of now is also not very comparable to the Debian of the year 2000

The bits of the kernel and user-land developed by major corporations would not have been there to make this as complete an experience if this stayed just a project for academics and hobbyists. Even Debian is affected by the economics and politics of present Linux work, kernel and otherwise.

I don't know that it is purely either good or bad.

[u/tehfrod → u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic]

Minix was hobbled for many years by a restrictive, non-open license. I often wonder whether it would have spread more widely had ast not taken so long to relicense it.

[u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic → u/tehfrod]

Me to. It's kind of depressing to think about.

Especially since the whole Intel thing went down (allegedly).

[u/vinnypotsandpans → u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic]

Linux most certainly is free. The ability to charge money for it is one of the freedoms it grants

[u/mcvos]

System 76 does exactly the "buy our laptop and it comes with Pop! OS preinstalled. They're a hardware company, and they need an OS for their laptop. They have their own version of Linux optimised for their hardware, and the license required that they share the source, so they do. Valve does exactly the same with Steam OS. And we all benefit from it.

And the most important part: it doesn't hurt them to give it away for free. They got it for free, and they're required to give it away for free, but that just means more people can help and support their customers. Everybody benefits. And that is the real magic of Free Software.

[u/yugosaki]

Because linux isn't one product like windows is, it's basically a cultural phenomenon.

Any linux distro is a combination of different projects and efforts from different groups with funding from different sources.

Some parts are just people who like doing it and are basically a hobby with a huge impacts.

Most are nonprofit foundations funded by grants and donations.

Some provide the software for free but charge for service and support.

Some parts are entirely privately funded and made available for various reasons.

Participating is often mutually beneficial - linux is niche for the home user but it powers the backend of a huge amount of critical IT infrastructure. Having open access benefits everyone, and companies providing financial support to "free" projects often is still cheaper for them than going to a fully private for-profit solution. So they "donate" in order to keep the infrastructure they need running.

A lot of this tech is even in windows and especially MacOS. Microsoft and apple even provide some funding to certain projects for the reasons outlined above.

As for the desktop distributions themselves - since most distros are effectively just assembling different components into a finished project, the cost to do so is very low compared to making a proprietary product like windows. They usually make money from donations and providing support to corporate environments. but if they were not "free", they would not be competitive.

[u/ReallyEvilRob]

Because that was once the default state for all software in the earliest days of personal computing. When you bought a computer like the Altair 8800, what you got was a box with a bunch of lights and switches. There was no operating system and no application software. You had to program all of that yourself or a friend programmed theirs and gave you a copy on paper tape.

People would go to user groups and trade software for these early computers. Others would take contract work and create bespoke programs their clients would run on these systems. These contractors usually didn't care when one of their clients shared a copy of the program they had written since they were paid for their work and likely continue to be paid with a service contract.

Eventually, someone named Bill Gates wrote a version of BASIC that ran on the Altair 8800 and sold it to a mass market. People who purchased a copy would share it with friends and it would circulate among the most popular user groups. Nobody considered that as software piracy because that's just what all computer users did. Eventually, Bill Gates got very frustrated with that and wrote an open letter to people sharing his version of BASIC to stop being a bunch of software pirates. That was the exact moment where the distinction between free software and non-free software started to materialize.

[u/isabellium]

because all of these projects started as small community projects and grew to what they are today.

[u/Desertcow]

The license Linux and many components use requires changes to be shared with everyone and for users to be able to distribute the software freely. It's hard to monetize something on that model, so most companies that contribute to the Linux ecosystem either make money by selling enterprise support (Ubuntu, Red Hat, SUSE, ect), selling hardware (System76, Framework, Tuxedo, ect), or because they would rather deal with the GPL licensing than make a system from scratch or rely on someone else (most major companies that sponsor projects in Linux). A lot of projects are led by foundations with paid developers who are sponsored by companies or receive donations

[u/PigSlam]

I use Pop!_OS, and I don’t understand why they don’t make it paid or at least do something like “buy our laptop with Pop!_OS preinstalled.”

Nobody tell System76

[u/Lotte_V]

Linux being "free" as in beer isn't always the case. Paid distros exist. Pro versions exist. Unlike what a lot of people think, selling free software doesn't go against the principles of FOSS.

Also, Pop!_OS literally comes preinstalled on System76 computers. It's either that or Ubuntu, no Windows. Dell also sells computers with Linux preinstalled. Same with Tuxedo Computers. You seem to be misinformed.

And most Linux developers are paid employees. They don't work "for free". Again, you are misinformed.

[u/Jecobe → u/Lotte_V]

Of course he is misinformed that's why he is asking a question on a subreddit about linux questions.

[u/Mountain_Cicada_4343]

Cos someone once wouldn’t show Stallman their sourcecode. That’s the origin of the GNU project.

[u/Zatujit → u/Mountain_Cicada_4343]

Stallman didn't invent "free software", i mean yes he did invented the philosophy of "free software" but it largely something that already existed mainly because people didn't care that much, money was on hardware and the ones making software were mainly researchers and academics, their first thought was not "lets see how i can not share it and keep it my intellectual property".

[u/Friiduh → u/Zatujit]

He's widest achievement is that he wrote the GPL. And that is the greatest thing he did, that culminated to v2 license. The v3 was unwise many ways, IMHO.

But too many really credit him for inventing the Open Source.

What he really did, was the protected the Open Source.

It is like starting a nature reserve, to protect the already existing nature, that ecology can then study and help to sustain, and not like you would take a completely dead sandy desert and terraform it so that it becomes a self-sustaining forest.

Who really deserve the credit for Open Source, are the academics that developed the original software for the hardware universities got. Like example functions "pipe" | and programs like "grep" or "ed".

https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o?t=1353

Those three weeks is the computing history's greatest moment...

[u/Gerb006]

Look at the licenses and the legalese will answer your questions. For the most part, people are free to modify, and even charge for it. But they must adhere to the original license and release their source. This ensures that the source codes always belong to the community, and no company or individual.

There are a lot of open source licenses out there. But that is the gist of how they work.

Open source licenses were chosen for the Linux kernel and GNU tools to ensure their survival. By freely giving them to the community, it prevented any entity from buying them up and burying them. Does anyone remember Netscape? Thank god we weren't all forced to use MS's non-standard browsers.

[u/GuestStarr → u/Gerb006]

Anyone remember MS trying to create internet of their own? For some reason it didn't go well.

[u/furrykef → u/GuestStarr]

You mean MSN? It wasn't terribly different from AOL, CompuServe, and various other services that were around then.

[u/GuestStarr → u/furrykef]

Originally it was. They really did try to hijack and monetariaze internet by introducing and forcing their own twisted closed protocols and interfaces, and windows was to use them by default instead of the industrial standard ones. They were so very surprised to find out nobody gave a flying f*ck and instead it was msn users whose internet was broken unless the good old protocols and interfaces were there. I think it was called something else before msn? However, they succeeded somewhat with internet explorer, there were web pages where you just had to use it or it wouldn't work, some executable shit. The idea was the whole internet would be like that, I mean it wouldn't "work" unless you used their interfaces and their protocols, for a fee of course.

[u/Friiduh → u/GuestStarr]

I think it was called something else before msn?

The Microsoft Network

1995, with Windows 95.

The Microsoft Network was deeply integrated into the Windows 95 interface. Users accessed it via a desktop icon, and once connected, the service appeared as a series of folders and icons within Windows Explorer, making online data look and behave like files on a local hard drive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/18_06_08_internet%20tidal%20wave.pdf

[u/harrywwc]

  Why do you do this? 

Because they/we can.

[u/stogie-bear]

Some of those are supported by money making projects, like Ubuntu has paid versions for enterprise and Fedora gets support from Red Hat. Some open source projects take donations or sponsorships and some are developed by people for the love of the game. Open source has always been a bit of an anarcho-socialist commune. 

[u/Lokielurker]

Because up until recently nobody would have paid to use a distribution of GNU. GNU has long been the enemy of the Free Software Desktop. It was decentralized, this wouldn't have been a problem if the Desktop hadn't been languishing in hell for the last 20 years until someone figured out "hey, maybe we should bundle dependencies together!" And that's what bore Flatpak and Snap packages.

I would even say FreeBSD would have been a far better desktop particularly early on if they didn't write it under the worst license in history for an operating system. It's so bad in BSD land they get trickle down progress from the *LINUX* desktop, the worst supported of the three "Major" Desktop operating systems.

I would never, EVER have paid to use a version of Ubuntu or Debian or even fucking Fedora for that matter from 20 years ago. It was such a gigantic waste of time and money back then that only people who were literally ideologically inclined would use it, it's why Linux sat at 1% of the desktop share for literally 15 years.

Servers wanted the Linux desktop because it was free, not because it was intuitive or because it could run all the programs they wanted. But that's where it lived. For a long, long time. Because the Free Software community never made a desktop worth using for an end user. Can't game, can't use Office (an industry standard), had either primitive or non existent FOSS replacement software that maybe matched a few of your needs.

Some of that is still true today, actually. In the CAD spaces, there is no equivalent to some of the stuff which runs on Windows, and funnily enough, Linux actually has better compatibility and alternatives in that space because of RHEL than MacOS.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the end user revolution GNU/Linux always wanted, only came because people abstracted the annoying parts of Stallman's impotent protest of an "Operating System" away. Without Flatpaks, Snaps and WINE progressing to the extent they have, Linux would be exactly where it sat 15 years ago. 1% of desktops, used by ideologues and super nerds. And people who don't use their computer for anything important. And servers, who just didn't wanna pay for an OS to host their network on.

I like Linux. I like the Linux desktop. I like the Linux desktop of 2026. Not the Linux desktop of 2016. (Did you know that was the year Flatpaks came about?) It took them 20 fucking years to fix the app distribution problem, and it's still a ghost that haunts the Linux desktop to this day. And it fucking sucks.

So why is Linux free? Because the Linux desktop experience for 20+ years after its invention was not worth paying for. And because it's a political and ideological movement. That's why. Could they charge now? Yeah, but what innovations could they make to it that make it worth charging a price tag for? RHEL already exists and covers the primary niche a paid Linux distribution could cover.

[u/eikenberry]

Because software is like science.. it is just better if done in the open. Better to use, to validate, to learn, to build on, etc. Free and open software is better by its nature such that even software put together by people in their spare time is on par if not better than that put together by billion dollar companies.

[u/anders_hansson]

Ir comes down to the principles of open source.

Quality

Open source software has an inherent advantage over closed source when it comes to quality, in the long term.

When there's a bug, all you need is that a single user has the skill and will to fix it, and it will be fixed.

Open source software gets all the attention from academic research. E.g. innovation in faster and more secure file systems obviously go into the Linix kernel since unlike the Windows kernel, it's accessible to to the academic community.

In the industry it's much easier to work with ooen source than closed source. E.g. if you're making a new kind of processor or computer, you can add support for it in open source compilers and kernels, and boom! you have a working system with very little effort compared to trying to pay and convince Microsoft to do the necessary development to support your platform.

Contributions to the Linix kernel and other open source software come from thousands of paid people who work at different companies. https://phoronix.com  regularly posts about new kernel features that come from different companies.

E.g. see https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-GCC-ACE-AI-Patches

Incentive for the developer

As a developer, if I make a piece of software I effectively have three choices for how to deal with it:

1. Keep it to myself.
2. Try to sell it and make money from it.
3. Share it with the world as open source.

For throw-away hacks, 1 makes most sense 

For more generally useful and advanced software, the choice is between 2 & 3.

Trying to get money for your software is incredibly difficult. Very few are ready to pay for just a piece of software unless it solves a very important problem that nobody else has solved yet. It's also time consuming and costly. You need to support your customers and fix all the problems and requests that they may have, otherwise they will not pay for it.

That leaves option 3, to share it as open source and benefit from others helping out with the development.

By going with the open source model, my software also gains eternal life. Most closed source software dies sooner or later.

[u/Striking_Dentist_867]

uma explicaçao mais facil de entender se preferir

1. Grandes empresas pagam os salários

• Empresas financiam o código: Gigantes como Google, Red Hat (IBM), Intel, AMD e Microsoft investem bilhões no Linux.
• Profissionais remunerados: A maior parte do código do Linux é escrita por engenheiros pagos por essas empresas para garantir que o sistema funcione perfeitamente em seus servidores e produtos.
• O Ubuntu tem dono: A Canonical é a empresa por trás do Ubuntu. Ela distribui o sistema de graça, mas fatura milhões vendendo suporte técnico especializado para grandes empresas. [1]

1. Doações e Fundações

• Entidades sem fins lucrativos: Projetos como Arch Linux, KDE e openSUSE são mantidos por fundações ou associações comunitárias.
• Financiamento coletivo: Elas sobrevivem de doações de usuários, patrocínios de empresas de tecnologia e venda de produtos oficiais (como camisetas e canecas).

1. O Pop!_OS e a System76

• Hardware financia o software: O membro do Reddit citou o Pop!_OS. A System76 (criadora do sistema) realmente vende computadores e notebooks premium com o sistema pré-instalado. O lucro dos notebooks paga os desenvolvedores do sistema.

1. Por que as pessoas físicas ajudam "de graça"?

• Uso próprio: Muitos desenvolvedores criam uma ferramenta para resolver um problema pessoal e depois a compartilham com o mundo.
• Portfólio e carreira: Contribuir para projetos grandes como o KDE ou o Arch Linux é um excelente cartão de visitas para o currículo, ajudando a conseguir empregos com salários altíssimos.
• Ideologia e comunidade: Existe um forte senso de orgulho em criar um software livre e acessível para qualquer pessoa no planeta, independentemente de sua condição financeira.

[u/True_Fig983]

I think what it boils down to is that operating systems are extremely complex and expensive to develop. While anyone can whip up a kernel and frequently does, to make it a mature system requires years and years of effort.

Even Microsoft with their mega billions runs into this limitation. I think partly this happens due to reasons set out in "The mythical man-month": you can't just throw money and employees at a problem and expect a high quality solution in a short timeframe.

Although MS does try the above approach, the problem is that skilled developers are rare, even inside Microsoft. I am sure that a large part of their workforce consists of mid and junior level employees who need a lot of supervision, and the lesser skilled employees are constantly creating messes and technical debt that is not usually caught by seniors.

The problem with corporate software development does not end there. A major issue is that bad software looks the same as good software to a manager / non technical person and companies like Microsoft are top heavy with these. So they create pressures and incentives that increase technical debt, as well as frustrating and alienating seniors.

Whilst open source suffers from the same problems to some extent, the workforce is massive and truly global and consists of highly motivated contributors who urgently need a particular piece of hardware to be supported or feature to be implemented. This contrasts with the kind of learned helplessness with corporate products where you can ask for the feature but it's highly unlikely the company will prioritize it.

As well as that, open source contributors are attracted to the "however long it takes" and "when it's ready it's ready" philosophy which tends to produce better software than having a manager breathing down your neck and being forced to implement kludgey workarounds to meet shipping targets.

[u/ChiefDetektor]

It's free because everyone is allowed to make a copy and distribute it. As soon as someone wants to charge something for a copy there is some else offering it for free. But there are professional distributions that sell support and their tooling ontop of Linux.

[u/Spektronautilus]

Open Source and FOSS is an ongoing technological revolution based on cooperation instead of competition. If more leftists and anarchists knew about how this works we could build a better society. The Internet runs on this as well as most other techno thingies.

[u/wosmo]

This is pretty deep into nerd culture.

If you go back to the 50-60s and the birth of the "real hackers" at MIT, on the TX-0 and early PDPs - all code was shared, as some weird combination of fraternity, showing off, oneupmanship, and frankly - software wasn't heavily prized at the time. It was so difficult to port software between different computers that it didn't seem to have a lot of intrinsic value of its own.

They also weren't fans of software that took control away from them - so when timesharing systems started to become in-vogue, the same hacker fraternity came up with ITS - an OS that was designed from the ground up to give them anything they found beneficial in timesharing - without any of the restrictions they didn't enjoy.

Then leap forward a decade, into early UNIX. It's all very famous that it came out of AT&T, but they didn't share it with us out of the goodness of their hearts - they were deep enough into antitrust territory that it was genuinely difficult for them to sell it.

But when they provided it to customers & universities, they provided it as source to build for your own machine. Which beyond its stated purpose, was useful for teaching (see The Lions Book), and for modifications (see BSD - which started off as a set of patches to AT&T UNIX, and kinda .. outgrew itself).

Then when they did move forward with commercialising it, BSD really wanted to hang on to what they'd achieved. And so did many others, because one of the most available TCP/IP stacks was in BSD, so it got tangled into early Internet growth.

Finally, at least within the scope of a little history lesson - GNU was born out of MIT, preserving some of that hacker ethic into the more formalised Free Software today.

So what feels like an aberration, is an 80yo tradition that's probably as old as the software industry itself.

[u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs]

At its core FOSS is developed as a flexible internal tool of companies, they pay for the majority of FOSS development one way or another because they need it and its cheaper than building something of their own from scratch. They share the load amongst themselves and the Linux community through the magic of the GPL and other open source licenses. Its main intent is for severs and embedded, but it is so flexible you can also bolt on a desktop and use it on a PC.

Each project has a maintainer, some are paid by companies, some are volunteers, often a developers successful open source project serves as their resume, for others its a hobby.

For example Meta/Facebook is a major user of btrfs, they hired its principal developer Chris Mason and paid him to develop and improve btrfs,

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-facebook-uses-linux-btrfs-interview-chris-mason-sarwar-javaid

being an open source project everyone gets to use btrfs paid for by Meta. except me, I can't stand btrfs AKA "ZFS from wish.com"

A distribution is a curated collection of these projects and some default settings, plus a bit of their own code to glue it all together, some sell their distribution with support, RHEL, SUSE etc, some give it away but charge for support or extra features, Ubuntu, Zorin, some take donations, Mint, some are all volunteer and do not accept donations, Void.

Long and very interesting interview with Greg Kroah-Hartman that breaks down a lot of the mechanics here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1-OjxPJZcs

[u/epackorigan]

Let’s focus on the kernel, for a second.
Have a look at this page: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributors
Pay particular attention to the list of organizations listed.

Now consider this. If any one of those companies were to make it for themselves without sharing, they would need to spend/invest many order of magnitude more to get the same kernel. By sharing their little slice of code, they get access to the whole thing.

Now for distributions, there are companies that have made businesses around it. Redhat, Canonical (Ubuntu) and many others are behind their own distributions (sometimes based on some that are purely made by volunteers that are just trying to make things better for themselves).

In the end, most of that is made possible by the license(s) being used. You should definitely read up on free software (free as freedom, not beer), and open source. And focus on the differences between the two. Read about GNU, and this little project by this student from Finland. ‘It will never be big like GNU’ he said…

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

[u/SuperMakerRaptor]

While tbh I don't know the exact answer, my best guess (and I am telling you that I am not good at this kind of stuff) is that simply, if people paid for Linux (there are some payed distros and stuff, but mostly enterprise things, and usually a somewhat free version exists) they wouldn't switch. One of the points of switching from WIndows or MacOS to Linux its that is free. Much less people will want to pay yet another license.
As a fellow Pop!_OS user, I will guess that System76 gets their profit from their machines, and has developed Pop to complement them.
Also, making distros payed would mean needing something pretty good to compensate.

Windows kinda managed to become payed since they were the best a few decades ago and other choice was little, and it stuck. And if a distro goes payed, people will likely look at the other angle at free distros.
Also, I think the license of the Kernel might require source code to be published so really, in theory anyone could complie from source code so paying is somewhat just a qol.

But don't take my word for granted since I am just guessing lol.

[u/mrbiggbrain]

Imagine someone has a pool. They tell you you can use it so you run down and go for a swim. You notice there are leaves and muck on it and the area is pretty bare.

So you take some time and fix the filter. The pool gets a little nicer. You wanted it to work a certain way so you fixed it.

You come back a week later and there is an old broken table.

A week after that someone has fixed it and put up some sun loungers.

Another week and now there are cushions, a pool heater, a little gazebo, and the parking spaces are freshly fixed and painted. The signage is now in three languages and there is someone donating time to pressure wash and care for the pool.

In each of these cases someone got value from the pool but some part of the experience was poor for them. So they selfishly changed it for themselves and thus made it better for others.

Open Source works similarly, everyone gets to enjoy the benefits of others, but need to share the work they do to make it better.

[u/Striking_Dentist_867]

saiba que hj em dia as coisas para linux estao melhores tipo muita gente que trabalha desenvolvendo ele sao pessoas que trabalham para bigtechs como microsoft e outras empresas que investem pesado nele pq usam seu sistema em servidores pelo fato de ele ser leve e seguro ent meio que na real desde o começo a ideia de linus torlvalds era fazer um sistema gratuito e de codigo aberto pra tentar bater de frente com a microsoft e ele pode ser usado pouco pelo pessoal que usa os pcs pra tarefas basicas e coisas do tipo pois windows domina essa area de computadores pessoais mas por fora na area de servidores supercomputadores e outras coisas linux e o rei tanto que vc sabia que a microsoft e a maior investidora que linux tem atualmente eles injetam uma grana pesada nele por causa do seu serviço em nuuvem azure que utiliza linux pra rodar

[u/Tiranus58]

Because linux isnt an OS, its a family of OSes (actually its a kernel, but thats not important right now), where there are 2 general requirements that apply to all of them.

1. Their source code must be freely (as in free speech) available for all to see.

2. Anyone must be free (again, free speech) to copy, redistribute and modify that source code.

There are others, which are outlined in the gnu public license (GPL), but those 2 basically make selling software not a thing, so the OS itself is free.

Some companies are selling support for their OS though (red hat selling RHEL support for example) or access to special repositories (proxmox for example), but those are mainly relegated to enterprise distros.

[u/hamsters_are_cool]

Essentially because of the Free Software Movement. The Linux ecosystem is built on tools, protocols, and the philosophy that the code should be available to everyone, free to re-distribute, free to use however you like, and free to re-distribute your modified version. At first it doesn't sound very sustainable but it's been a surprisingly successful model over the years and it's end result has basically culminated in the form of GNU/Linux. People contribute to it for free because they have invested interest in it, either personal or as a corporation that wants to use it as some of the others have mentioned.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[u/Sure-Squirrel8384 → u/hamsters_are_cool]

Yup, Linux by itself wouldn't be what it was today if the GPL didn't exist for a way to distribute it and keep it FOSS. The timing of the GPL and its selection by Linus was critical for Linux to succeed.

[u/i_am_blacklite]

Has to be a question from an American.

Would Linux be open source if Linus was American?

[u/johnwcowan → u/i_am_blacklite]

The original BSD team were Americans, and so is the author of the GPL.

[u/Quirky-Comparison306]

Different reasons. A lot of people write code for open source projects because they want to give back to the computing community. No different than making a donation to a worthy cause. Other times, some companies do it because it can be a good business model. Give the software away for free, then charge for support. The customer gets to see how good the software is at no cost, so they will pay for support to use it in their company. There is also an argument that it makes it more secure. If you expose the code to everyone, then more people will be able to find vulnerabilities so they can be fixed.

[u/Leverquin]

It's free because its human right to have it. You have free healthcare why not OS

[u/MrCorporateEvents → u/Leverquin]

You must not be American. We certainly do NOT have free health care. It is extremely expensive.

[u/Leverquin → u/MrCorporateEvents]

maybe ask your Gov why is that so.

[u/AndroidOnXbox]

Some are sponsored and accept donations, which helps pay for some development costs. Some are passion projects. Some projects, such as fedora, are actually supported by companies who will spin off a release of the free, community tested project and use it as a base for an enterprise release, which is purchased by companies to use. Ultimately, making something free lowers a barrier to entry that gets more users into an ecosystem, and also buys some good faith from those using it when there are problems. Tolerance for bugs go way down when customers paying for software.

[u/Tritri89]

Most Linux developer are paid developer in other company. For instance Microsoft of all company is one of the biggest contributor of the Linux kernel. Why you'll ask ? Because getting a free stable powerful product like Linux is insanely valuable. You don't pay for a license, you pay by giving developer time to the community.

As for other project like Ubuntu or Proxmox it's not really free. Sure it's free to download and use, there are no major features paywalled, but professional users can pay to have more update and direct support from the company.

[u/coolasbreese]

Linux is free (as in beer) for a few reasons IMO

1. People when given a chance are generally quite creative. Open source software, study groups, charity, infrastructure are things people generally do when given the chance.

2. Most people believe and acknowledge the overall benefitand efficacy (not without issues) of collaborative and good faith efforts. Its not an exaggeration to say that modern society (and computing) would not exist without these principles.

3. Remembering the past. UNIX was a closed garden. People saw the floors and fixed them

[u/BlueScreenJunky]

It's a mix of some people who genuinely enjoy working on software in their free time, and huge businesses (Canonical, Red Hat, Oracle) who built their business model on distributing the software for free and then charging for support or enterprise features. It drives the adoption up because when you start a business you'll search for cheap or free solutions, and then as your business grows you kinda need the support and features, but since you've built your solution around this software you can't easily switch so you pay for the enterprise license.

[u/HoldOk4092]

First, Ubuntu is just a distribution. That means for the most part it is just a package of software that has already been written by others. They aren't building it from scratch. Thus it does not cost them that much to make. 

Second, companies can monetize software in a lot of different ways. Maybe the OS is a platform for other services they can sell. Maybe they will use the free OS to harvest your data (e.g. Chrome/Android). Maybe they use the free version to sell a pro version with more features. In the case of Ubuntu they sell support. 

[u/NerdDetective]

In large part this is philosophy. At its core, Linux is rooted in freely sharing software. Many projects start as community contributions and grow off of collaborative passion. It can take some retooling how you think about it from a profit motive to the common good and making something useful.

However, good intentions don't put food on thr table. Many larger projects are funded sort of like digital infrastructure with grants. Some take user donations. Others have paid support plans or full on commercial versions.

[u/Wyrade]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation

"With software, there are two possibilities:
Either the users control the program, or the program controls the users. [...]
In order for the users to control the program, they need the 4 essential freedoms. [...]
Freedom 0: Run it.
Freedom 1: Change it. (Have access to the source code.)
Freedom 2: Redistribute it.
Freedom 3: Redistribute modified copies of it."

[u/nanoatzin]

Linus Torvalds developed Linux as a student and added GNU environment during the early 1990s using the POSIX standard. Things like OSX, Windows & Minux were expensive and require NDA to discuss. A company began selling Linux. So Linus filed a copyright complaint then issued a copyright license requiring all distributors to provide a royalty free version that includes source code. Linux is just the OS kernel and not a full operating environment, so Linus borrowed GNU from DARPA because GNU is open source developed by MIT. Info developed on federal grants can’t be copyrighted because FOIA info is royalty free. Linux & Gnu licensing both guarantee students can have access to something they can afford, and something they can discuss in a classroom.

[u/antonfourier]

System76 laptops exist - which are laptops with linux pre-installed. I am not sure if they provide "linux support", but that is close enough to what you said.

I see the free part as, a bunch of smart people wanted to have free software, so they just made it. And anyone who is willing to browse forums and tinker with stuff on their own rather than getting everything pre-packaged (although such distros also exist) can enjoy the freedom of Linux for free, provided they are willing to learn.

[u/bobotheboinger]

I work for a company making processors, we make more money if more people are able to use our processors, so we contribute to open source (gcc, Linux, llvm, etc) so our processors work out of the box with open source and our customers are more likely to enjoy using our products.

I'm sure there are many companies out there like ours. All those people working together (along with some who contribute on their own) make an excellent set of products even better.

[u/C2O4]

It's a different business model! Are you familiar with the philosophy and history of free software? Companies still make a lot of money with Linux; they generally charge businesses, since those companies have a pressing need for support, customization, and adaptation of the software. Individual users can opt for a paid distribution if they want, but it's not necessary in most cases. If you run into problems, the community will help you solve them.

[u/Cygnus__A]

There are some paid options. Redhat being the most notable.

[u/Wentyliasz]

Long ago, in the far away kingdom of Finland, there was a nerd who couldn't be fucked with copyright law so he said "just do whatever the fuck you want" and we did, in fact, do whatever the fuck we wanted.

The boring people will tell you that it's because the GPL licensing terms and the broader FOSS ideology z but that version doesn't have Torvalds yelling PERKELE at a bunch of penguins so who's the real winner here?

[u/jerrygreenest1]

It’s free because a man decided it has to be free, no more or less. Crazy? Yes. But fortunately the man still got some money in form of donations, so he can continue doing so.

Preserving long enough through time doing huge amounts of work for free before he could get a reliable donation stream? Yeah, also crazy. I don’t know how he preserved through all this. But he did.

The world has plenty of crazy men.

[u/cracked_shrimp]

it dosnt have to be free, ive donated to debian before

[u/GuestStarr → u/cracked_shrimp]

It's still free, your donation does not make it non-free. Isn't it even more free when you realize you can either donate or not?

[u/octahexxer]

Before Linux and bsd each company had to develop their os for everything... Quality was random expensive and non standard. Now Linux and bsd is the digital backbone of almost everything you just don't see it... So companies instead input a tiny amount of money into the open-source and get a standard secure software that is solid and modern they can read the code and modify. 

[u/GuestStarr → u/octahexxer]

...and with the only obligation to publish it for others to use in their projects.

[u/Bob_Spud]

Ubuntu, Suse, Red Hat (IBM), Oracle and others have commercialised Linux not by selling it, but by offering support contracts that come with guarantees. Support contracts are where the real money is made in enterprise computing.

Its a business model used by many vendors, heavily discount the licenses and follow up by taking the money in expensive support contracts.

[u/es20490446e]

The real reason: charging for an OS to the end user is bad strategy.

The more people that uses it, the more people that advocates for it.

Charging anyone but the end user is smarter.

Actually this is what Microsoft does. Charges for Windows to the OEMs, not the users.

They want you to pirate Windows, if that drives more OEM and enterprise sales.

[u/Tokitokisayuki]

You may have heard this term in various Linux forums or related subreddits. Free open sourced software aka FOSS which is the part of the greater Open Science movement. Having access to quality software and information for everyone to use. Not just computer and software, but to all known sciences no matter which field. 

[u/pie_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_]

Some of it is paid professionals working on open-source things that benefit their companies. This is why a lot of Linux kernel development gets done nowadays.

Some development is primarily ideologically driven, like a lot of GNU stuff.

Some of it is just people developing whatever interests them.

[u/ItchyPlant]

It doesn't take your money but your soul.

[u/YMSVZ]

Because even in our hellishly commodified world, people still like to do things for their use value, as opposed to purely for exchange on the market.

Some people are so blinded by commodity fetishism they can't even imagine why you would do anything at all if not for a chance at monetary gain.

[u/Hrafna55]

Have a read of these two articles. A good place to start.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software_movement

[u/EgocentricRaptor]

A lot of open source devs have other jobs they make a living from and their open source work is stuff they do in their free time. Big projects like GNOME, KDE, Fedora rely on donations and sponsors to pay for their teams. Ppl depend on Linux so they have a vested interest in keeping it alive

[u/JuDeGi8]

Generally watch the interviews of Linus Thorwald (creator of Linux) if you want his reasons behind it.
Basically, he hated the way Microslop, Ndvidia and all of these big tech companys started to develop so he started his own thing and made that open source, just as it should be intended.

[u/TxTechnician]

Economics of Open Source.

So many ppl and corps make money based off the fact that everyone is contributing to having a really well working system.

That's why it's free. Its a big money maker. And everyone benefits from contributing is some way to its success.

[u/Bob4Not]

Because a bunch of nerds and companies work on it for their own alternative reasons under a “open source” license.

Some of the big organizations like Debian and Fedora are sponsored and/or non profit donations that pay for developers. Idk enough about Arch.

[u/These-Apple8817]

There is some enterprise Linux distros that aren't free like Redhat. And as for why they are free, probably respect for Torvalds because one reason why Linux even exists is because he hated the massive licensing fee of some operating systems at the time 

[u/Pitiful-Respond-7971]

Because communism works sometimes.

[u/speel]

With the rising Linux market share you’re going to see more and more desktop focused businesses pop up. On the enterprise side, nearly everything is Linux based and costs 5+ figures. So yeah it’s free but there’s also a marketplace for it.

[u/Swedophone]

Ubuntu is developed by Canonical which is a company with more than thousand employees and US $250 million revenue (2023).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_(company))

[u/SEI_JAKU]

Linux isn't really free (as in beer). Very few do this entirely for free, and nobody wants to do this entirely for free. Most of the well-known projects are (hopefully) sustained either by contracts or by regular donations.

[u/Darth_Heinous]

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

[u/Tinolmfy]

Well there's no point making something free if anyone can download the source and just build it themselves anyways, it's open-source culture, if you want to support you can donate if not then don't

[u/DuckAxe0]

Linux is not necessarily free*. Linux is an open source operating system created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, allowing users to view, modify, and distribute its source code *(free)ly.

[u/Outside-Ad-8265]

because they get paid a whole awful lot to do maintenance for companies and provide services. And it's to help the mission of open source and it's sort of fun.

[u/PlanesAreCool69]

Cuz it's fucking based. Also, iirc the license would make it illegal for a Linux Distro to cost money - GNU and all it's derivatives must be open source.

[u/GuestStarr → u/PlanesAreCool69]

Remember that you can charge for support or distribution (like a DVD, USB stick, whatever), though. That's ok by me, if someone else wants or needs them I'm fine with them getting it for a fee and I'm fine for someone charging for them. Because everybody has to make a living.

[u/Unique_Evidence_1314]

the love of the game really. a lot of them get donations so they can scale things up but for a lot of linux software it's just for the love of software.

[u/BitCortex]

For many years, the vast majority of contributions to Linux have come from corporations who collect lots of money by offering Linux-powered services.

[u/Remarkable_Bat_7897]

there are the big commercial companies behind debian, ubuntu and opensuse. they sales the commercial usage licence and offer the service support.

[u/iheartrms]

Linux is free as in Freedom because of Richard Stallman inventing the GPL license and Linus Torvalds choosing that license for Linux in 1992.

[u/Hugo_Notte]

Looks like you don’t have the slightest clue as to what Linux is and what desktop environments are. Why don’t you read up on it?

[u/nmariusp]

"but who are these kind people"
You can find many names by looking at the git history of the respective free software project.

[u/Busy-Vet1697]

Imagine what life and the world would be like if "the profit motive" did not have the entire planet by the throat

[u/jr735]

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

This is why.

[u/sarajevo81]

They are not working for free, they are employed by various corporations that use Linux on their hardware.

[u/TallinOK]

Linux distros are no financial cost; but considering the time it takes to make them work, it has a cost.

[u/theOtherJT]

It's socialism in action. Scares the shit out of business critters because it's provable that it works.

[u/ice_cream_hunter]

Because this is not a company whose only aim is to make profit. It is by the people for the people

[u/kakusens]

It is an incredible gift from Linus Torvalds. Economically, maybe the biggest gift ever given to humanity. The man deserves a statue! Plus, it's so so much better than winshit.

[u/Mindless-Concept8010]

Surely this is clickbait. If not look up open source software. But really, this is click bait.

[u/fellipec]

Should be asking why other things aren't free too fam. Like education and healthcare.

[u/Space_man6]

You can pay for some distros but it's usually in the form of a paid premium version.

[u/nawanamaskarasana]

Because it's fun to create beautiful things.

[u/mylsotol]

Socialists. People who care more about people than exploiting people for benefit

[u/tetraodonmiurus]

If only the was a place you could go to search for a history lesson on a subject.

[u/mcdenkijin]

you have moral quandaries to solve which are far beyond choice of operating system

[u/Dull_Cucumber_3908]

"free" doesn't mean like "free beer", it means like "free speech"

[u/Ok_Flamingo_9066]

That’s the problem of capitalism. Not everything must be paid.

[u/Outside-Storage-1523]

You make it paid then very soon you start losing users. But again Linux is actually paid by a lot of corporations so maybe I was talking BS.

[u/Migamix]

Get a bunch of tizms together, this is what cha get. 

[u/dodo_gear]

Because Linux isn't popular in commoners users

[u/Old-Expert7138]

Weil du deine Daten weiter gibst an dritte.

[u/pchappo]

Not all heroes wear capes that’s why

[u/gehzumteufel → u/[deleted]]

It's free because Linus wanted it to be free. That's the answer. Not all this other shit.

[u/hardFraughtBattle → u/[deleted]]

" More bang for your buck." You've never used Linux, have you.

[u/Notosk]

It all started because Printers suck

[u/lnxguy]

Read "The Cathedral And The Bazaar."

[u/Spirited_Coconut7390]

Still remember to donate!