How long will Linux remain free?

Just wanted to ask for general interests' sake:

As someone who is new to Linux, I have noticed that there are a certain number of distros offered for sale - rather than for free, open-source download, which usually seem to be backed by some company and offer 'support', manuals and premade install cd's for the fee. While this may entice a certain percentage of the market and so will help to spread Linux, it seems to completely fly in the face of what Linux stands for.

I suppose increased support is all well and good, but I think most people would agree that even someone completely new to Linux doesn't really need phone-in support, manuals, or premade cd's (a great forum like this suffices pretty darn well, I have found). My question is, is Linux going to remain free for the foreseeable future, or are these proprietary distros going to eventually take over?

[wshawn]

Some distros have a business structure requiring some sort of payment. Generally speaking there are hundreds of free distros and even some of the paid ones can be gotten for free by downloading them and skipping the whole "subscription" plan.


Personally, I left mandrake because I felt the users were forced into joining their club to get simple questions answered. Red Hat recently reannounced that Fedora will always remain free.

In my opinion I could care less about PAYING for a distribution as long as it doesn't "force" me to do things their way and to put up with them making all the decisions for me. Keep the distro pure and let me make my own decisions. That is worth paying something for... but then again it would be my choice because I had an authentic sense of value in the product.

Not a value assigned by market strength and peoples willingness to pay for it....

[markkuk]

Linux will always remain Free. There's nothing wrong with companies selling Linux distribution media or support services for Linux.

[PilotJLR]

Because of the licensing terms, Linux has to be free and open source, so I don't see that changing.

Even the Linux distros for sale are open source too - the company just doesn't provide pre compiled binaries in some cases. You could still get the source, and compile it (with tons of time and skill).
The product-form distributions are necessary for production environments... although Fedora is a fine disty, do you think Fortune 500 companies should use in on their server farms? Hence Red Hat...

[Zigzagcom]

"Free as in beer". There is nothing that prevents you from creating your own distro and selling it. But are you going to provide support for the distribution, i.e., update old packages, provide security updates, improve the code and add value to the distribution by adding applications, that work with it seamlessly.
Then there are corporate customers and us regular users. Each have different needs. With Fedora, we are the guinea pigs, the testers, and get a free and great OS to play with. The bug reports and problems find their way to the developers. This in turn provides "rock solid" code for inclusion in the more commercial versions of the respective distributions.

And there is a big difference between source code and packages. We are being spoiled rotten. No longer do we have to compile everything from scratch, although you are certainly entitled to compile and create a custom linux OS as you please. That is still the nitty gritty of linux.

It all takes work, one way or another.

[gtr225]

From what I understand, if some company wants to offer a distro of linux, they still have to offer a free version. But even so, I don't mind paying for an OS, as long as it's actually good and resonably priced.

I understand the idea of it being perfectly legit to collect a fee for distributing something you've made, and that 'free' can apply to being able to modify and redistribute as well as give away your stuff away for nothing. It just seems to me that mr bill gates has corrupted the idea of 'computering' away from what it should be w. his monopoly - he has turned using what for many of us is a 'toy' into a high-priced venture, and I don't think that should be so. Instead of spreading a great product, it's all about lining his pockets. I am a university student, and for many people I know the latest windows OS let alone all the security software required is a huge expense they can't keep up with.

I think one of the great things about linux is its availability to the regular user, who may or may not want to modify and redistribute it. I get really irritated at the idea of windows monopolizing the market, I know so many people who figure if it's not made by microsoft then what's the point? (and they're getting sick of me telling them how great linux is...but I will keep on telling them anyways). But it would just be a shame if linux became a for-profit venture.

[gtr225]

I think it would be great just to a have a nice mix of zero-cost distros of linux for average users and non-profit organizations and also fee-based ones for large corporations and people who need support and an OS for mission-critical situations.

[Zigzagcom]

Hey, it would be great if I could get commodities like clothing, food and fuel for free...or how about a top notch education.

[JN4OldSchool]

You dont have any need to worry about Linux remaining free. The kernel is and always will be available to whomever wants to use it. There will always be a guy in his basement or a group of guys workinjg at night over beer writting yet another distro just for the hell of it. It seems to go against the grain, but the world at large wants to show off their skills, help out their fellow man, involve others in their interests or just spit in the face of a capitialistic world. For whatever reason people continue to offer things for free, be it music or movie files they have themselves paid for, games, Midi karaoke files, Linux distros or whatever. A good case for this is all the Windows software you can find for free. Sometimes it is put out as an introduction to fuller paid for software such as AVG's free virus program, or Zonealarm's firewall. But more often than not it is just put out there as a good faith offering to kind of say "see, look what I created! Try this! Bet you like it!" It amazes me when I think about it.

[tomcat]

Personally, I left mandrake because I felt the users were forced into joining their club to get simple questions answered.

Hm... I am a long time Fedora and Mandriva user and never ever was I forced to join the Club (You can post at their forums without being a club member and there is also the alternative mandrivausers.org forum (imho the better of the two big forums)). I think there is a great misunderstanding there.

If you join the Club, you will have access to a distro that comes with proprietary stuff included by default (ATI, NVIDIA driver, Acrobat, and other stuff) and you will get some printed manuals, too. Actually the costs are not so high if you would know how much printing a manual actually costs. It is quite expensive, I can tell you (I worked in the dtp department, so I know the prices). Sure, you can install all the NVIDIA and Acrobat stuff yourself, but not everyone is able to do that (there are computer-illiterate people on earth) or thinks that he can do it (fear of breaking things). For those people, these boxed sets are a good offer. For those who don't mind adding stuff themselves, there are always the 100% free Mandriva isos available.

One more thing about manuals. Some might think that printed manuals are useless as everything is available in forums such as this or other websites, but most people don't even know that computer support forums exist. They would be lost without printed manuals.

One thing is for sure. There will always be free Linux distros out there. No need to worry.

Originally Posted by gtr225

I think it would be great just to a have a nice mix of zero-cost distros of linux for average users and non-profit organizations and also fee-based ones for large corporations and people who need support and an OS for mission-critical situations.

So like a 'standard' distro that could be marketed as a windows/mac competitor in stores, and then a corporate distro w. company support, and then freely available customizable distros for all of us who just like to fiddle around without being under a Monopoly (so long as at least a few of those keep kicking around)? Sounds awesome!

Originally Posted by Zigzagcom

Hey, it would be great if I could get commodities like clothing, food and fuel for free...or how about a top notch education.

In my university the costs go up every year, partly for all the new computers they keep buying. Meanwhile, every computer runs windows xp pro, but uses firefox as the default browser and in computer science classes they encourage us to buy a mac, or try linux.

Originally Posted by tomcat

One more thing about manuals. Some might think that printed manuals are useless as everything is available in forums such as this or other websites, but most people don't even know that computer support forums exist. They would be lost without printed manuals.

I also know a great many people that get very upset when no manual is included w. something and will go to the library and get out lots of thick books, then never have time to read them. For those folks I would agree with you that a premade manual would be great. Meanwhile I've been telling everyone to try linux and check out the forums...

[sargek]

Originally Posted by markkuk

Linux will always remain Free. There's nothing wrong with companies selling Linux distribution media or support services for Linux.

I find it interesting that many new users have no idea what the foundations of GNU/Linux are, and why it will always remain free. Thanks for pointing that out. Here is another link: http://www.gnu.org/

[tejas]

Originally Posted by gtr225

From what I understand, if some company wants to offer a distro of linux, they still have to offer a free version.

Well, not really.

The linux kernel is free, as is _most_ of the software that Linux works with.

However, there is nothing that stops a person from combining a set of free packages, and making a non-free product, as long as they have not modified the source code for the packages.

Only if you _modify_ the source code of the package, you have to release the new code.

In Fedora, about 90% of the packages are really unmodified, so RH really doesn't _need_ to release the source code of the modifications, but they do in good will.

On the other hand, packages like the kernel are modified, so they need to release the sources to that.

Originally Posted by sargek

I find it interesting that many new users have no idea what the foundations of GNU/Linux are, and why it will always remain free. Thanks for pointing that out. Here is another link: http://www.gnu.org/

I find it interesting that you find that so interesting - of course new users don't know very much about all this, that's basically why we visit the forum - to LEARN. Most people don't know a lot about something they've never used when they first start using it - we may ask silly questions once in a while, but that's sort of the point I thought - at least we want to know more.

I would just like to point out that my original reason for starting this thread was the question, Will linux remain free as in zero cost available for download for those fed up with monopolizing marketing giants who are just out for monetary gain (I think mr gates has lost sight of his original vision), to those of us who are willing to put in the time and effort? So far as freedom in software creation, there are obviously very deep roots there, and linux has a legacy that shows no signs of changing - which is fabulous, I have a lot of respect for that.

I was simply wondering if there would come a time when if I wanted to use Linux, it would only be available in a box on a shelf alongside windows and osx. The responses here have clarified that and a lot of other things, and the links provided were very informative. Thanks to everybody for your input.