I would happily pay for Ubuntu. However, Ubuntu would have to charge quite a bit of money in order to make even remotely as much per user as Apple is making by being a high-margin hardware company (where the OS is almost nothing more to them than an incentive to buy more hardware).
Even so, I'd happily pay for that as well; but, I can't, as Ubuntu won't take my money [1]: they don't sell anything I can actually buy; AFAIK, the only thing they accept money for is sending people to my business to give talks about how to better use Ubuntu.
[1] http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/why-is-it-free
Now, that said, a lot of the value that Ubuntu brings to the table is actually thanks to the people working on Debian: Ubuntu just takes their packages. I would also quite happily pay for things from Debian; I'd probably be even happier doing so than paying for things from Ubuntu.
However, they also do not charge for things, so I cannot pay them for things. I can donate money to them[2], but now we are talking about something much more complex (involving physical mail and checks or money orders) at a much higher mental cost of deciding "well, now how much?".
[2] http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/
I personally don't even think that I'm rare: a lot of people are quite happy to pay for things that provide them value, and Ubuntu is not just helping me personally, it helps my business. I run all of my servers using Ubuntu: I'm paying Amazon to run the machines, I'd happily pay Ubuntu for the software.
I thereby don't think it is quite fair to put the blame for this on the "very few hackers [that/which/whom/omgdunno] are willing to put their money where their mouths are": Ubuntu is much like the business that is undercharging for their services, and thereby cannot satisfy the customer [3].
[3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555062
(Though, I can totally see the argument that the reason that they are able to even do what they do is that they do not charge: that if they charged there would be tons of internal community arguments about what the money was for and who would get it; or, quite simply, the direct monetization could undermine the charitable aspects.)
Even so, I'd happily pay for that as well; but, I can't, as Ubuntu won't take my money [1]: they don't sell anything I can actually buy; AFAIK, the only thing they accept money for is sending people to my business to give talks about how to better use Ubuntu.
[1] http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/why-is-it-free
Now, that said, a lot of the value that Ubuntu brings to the table is actually thanks to the people working on Debian: Ubuntu just takes their packages. I would also quite happily pay for things from Debian; I'd probably be even happier doing so than paying for things from Ubuntu.
However, they also do not charge for things, so I cannot pay them for things. I can donate money to them[2], but now we are talking about something much more complex (involving physical mail and checks or money orders) at a much higher mental cost of deciding "well, now how much?".
[2] http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/
I personally don't even think that I'm rare: a lot of people are quite happy to pay for things that provide them value, and Ubuntu is not just helping me personally, it helps my business. I run all of my servers using Ubuntu: I'm paying Amazon to run the machines, I'd happily pay Ubuntu for the software.
I thereby don't think it is quite fair to put the blame for this on the "very few hackers [that/which/whom/omgdunno] are willing to put their money where their mouths are": Ubuntu is much like the business that is undercharging for their services, and thereby cannot satisfy the customer [3].
[3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555062
(Though, I can totally see the argument that the reason that they are able to even do what they do is that they do not charge: that if they charged there would be tons of internal community arguments about what the money was for and who would get it; or, quite simply, the direct monetization could undermine the charitable aspects.)