Community Driven Business Model for Proprietary Versions For Linux

There are certain proprietary software for linux, sometimes the linux version is a couple of versions behind and thats really annoying.

What if the community got together and donated money to give a monetary incentive for proprietary companies already building linux versions? Maybe the community could regulate such donations with one of the company reps too.

Just a thought. Do you think it'll work?

Originally Posted by vxc69 Do you think it'll work?

No, because you'll never be able to raise enough money to make it worth their while. Why don't you just buy a controlling stake in the company?

Ummm... cause I'm poor? I was thinking donations of like $20 by anyone interested.... I suppose that won't be enough.

Forget about donating to proprietary companies to provide better service to linux, how many of us donate to linux distros and other projects? How many of us buy the original CD/DVD sets from the distros?

I would think if more and more people use linux and let them know that they use and want support for linux, the proprietary companies will provide support.

Originally Posted by vxc69 Ummm... cause I'm poor?

I was just kidding.

You can always try, but some things to think about...

How much do you think you would need to donate to the proprietary company?
Would the same amount go further if donated to an existing project providing a FLOSS equivalent of the proprietary software you want accelerated?
How many people already donate hard cold cash to FLOSS projects?
Would non-donors want to start donating to a proprietary (likely for profit) company or would you need to convince existing donors to start donating to a proprietary company?

The Tux500 project was unable to collect the $350,000 needed to become a primary sponsor in the 2007(?) Indy 500. I don't remember what the final tally was, but it was only a few 10's of thousands. I'd suspect a for profit, proprietary company would want waaaay more than $350K to do anyone's bidding assuming they would be willing to do some outsider's bidding at all.

The only way you're going to drive a company is buy a controlling stake or get on the board. Of course, by then you would realize your fiducial responsibility to the shareholders precludes you from accelerating the development of *nix compatible software.