Re: Who pays for software for use on a personal Linux PC?
"Who pays for software for use on a personal Linux PC?"
Me, although not all that often. It was proprietary, it was better than the open source alternative. It was something I couldn't just make on my own over a couple weekends. It was cheap. I bought it. It still runs today.
"If one must resort to using proprietary software, there's usually means for obtaining it free of charge."
And you can try that if you like, but I usually value not committing copyright violations and not having to worry about the random site I just downloaded a binary from more than the purchase price. Of course there are some products that would be so expensive that I'd balk at paying for them, which is why I use so many pieces of open source software which have fewer features than the commercial alternatives but still work fine for my use cases. You don't have to use proprietary software if you don't want to, but if you find it's worth having, then you could always pay the creators what they're asking for if it's a fair price.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
