EU software patent law faces axe 786

And he does none of the above. well, Kier, you seem to have ignored the question marks in the sentences. They imply that a question is being asked, not that a statement is being made. Of course it was a taunt, but that's all that Rick seems to offer me as well. Paying for a distro is hardly support of OSS. It is simply a convenience charge for not having to take the time to download and the trouble to burn.

Paying for a commercial distro may help the distro supplier directly, but it does not help the developer one whit. The developer is relying on getting something back to "pay" him for his troubles. If he gets nothing back, as from users like Rick, he receives no pay at all. I'm willing to believe that no one posting in this group is a bona fide member of any OSS project development team, although the chance exists. The best that you all hope for is that someone does a lot of work that you can benefit from for free and somehow that keeps happening. You are relying on the good graces of these developers to continually improve their "products" and I don't think that is a realistic view.

Barter sometimes worked on the prarie because people had somethings to trade. Using Linus' IP without giving any code back to Linus that he can use is not fair to Linus. Maybe he doesn't mind as long as you are feeding his ego, but that isn't fulfilling the premise of the open source ideal. Mooching is the term used in the USofA for this kind of activity.