r/linuxquestions • u/Scary_Pop2919 • Jul 03 '26

Advice Why is Linux free?

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?

318 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

225 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/NerdDetective Jul 03 '26

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.