GrimyHR | # 61 | 2012-02-08, 18:37 | Report

thay should have opted for telling people to buy that tablet(android one) after they published the os and asked people to donate 20-30$ for their hard work, im sure most of the FOSS community that would have used it would be glad to do it, but this is just greedy behavoiur

impact | # 62 | 2012-02-08, 18:48 | Report

Well it's not gonna program itself, is it?

sulu | # 63 | 2012-02-08, 19:28 | Report

That's a common misconception. Linux is not supposed to be free of charge. Anybody can sell it for any price. There are or were numerous companies that sell or sold Linux:
Red Hat, Novell, Oracle, Linpus, Xandros, LinuxXP, Caldera/SCO
(just to name the ones that come to my mind immediately)

GrimyHR | # 64 | 2012-02-08, 19:34 | Report

those are free dists with paid SUPPORT

all of them "unsupported" free versions for non-corporate usage

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Last edited by GrimyHR; 2012-02-08 at 19:38.

GrimyHR | # 65 | 2012-02-08, 19:37 | Report

actually they didnt develop it, not even 1% , are they going to share the money they earn with all the people that are developing linux for the last 20 years?

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Last edited by GrimyHR; 2012-02-08 at 19:53.

mrsellout | # 66 | 2012-02-08, 19:57 | Report

Aaron Seigo's blog dated 2nd Feb gives a good explanation of the project.
He does say on the very subject you're debating now:
Which is why I'm inclined to pre-order from them. This isn't just about buying a tablet; it's about trying to help back a new open device era.

GrimyHR | # 67 | 2012-02-08, 20:03 | Report

yeah...if this goes anywhere ill donate a sum of money to them that i consider fair, maybe even multiple times, depends on how long they continue to update the device...but im sure as hell not buying a device from them for this price and than risking to get stuck with an OS that is going nowhere...

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Last edited by GrimyHR; 2012-02-08 at 20:10.

wmarone | # 68 | 2012-02-08, 20:05 | Report

You can always donate on your own.

But to call it greedy is likely to completely fail to understand what it's like dealing with a chinese OEM. I suspect part of the price may be in paying the OEM the ransom they're demanding for the kernel, combined with direct shipment of a low volume of tablets.

GrimyHR | # 69 | 2012-02-08, 20:08 | Report

its 125$ shipped when ordering just one piece from retailer...it can just get lower than that when ordering more than one

for instance this tablet costs 88$ when ordered in quantity of 501 or more

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Last edited by GrimyHR; 2012-02-08 at 20:17.

sulu | # 70 | 2012-02-08, 20:11 | Report

You won't get RHEL for free without support. I tried two years ago. The same goes for SLES and Oracle.
LinuxXP is shareware that wil stop working after 30 days unless you buy a license.
Linpus and Xandros (stand alone) have never been available in binary form without buying them.
Caldera is discontinued.

bottom line: You won't get any of the distributions I mentioned in binary form without paying for it, regardless whether you want support for it or not.