>If every one of those programmers paid $150 for their copy of Linux Desktop - do you think it would enough to fund a Company that could build/maintain a rock-solid-stable-base Linux Desktop?
It wouldn't be a bad place to start.
>The problem is that developing/supporting an OS requires enormous engineering resources and you magically don't require less resources just because your install base is small.
Well, you have to narrow the hardware you support. That's the main thing that makes Linux on the desktop suck. Only Microsoft has succeeded in writing a highly compatible operating system, as you mention with a lot of resources. But there isn't the will for this, because people want Linux to run on everything. In this area, System76 are probably doing the best. But their hardware is not very good.
>I personally think that - many companies have realized there is no money to be made in supporting desktop Linux(i.e desktop itself, not a cross-platform application running on top of it), even if every one of those users paid the one time fee.
The point is that the fee is off the table because nobody would pay it. That's all I'm saying. Your argument is a non-sequitur. You say these engineering problems require hard work, and that there's not enough money in it even if everyone paid the fee. In that case, one would need to raise the fee until it can pay for the development that needs to be done.
But the market would not bear it. It already will not bear a standard operating system price.
It wouldn't be a bad place to start.
>The problem is that developing/supporting an OS requires enormous engineering resources and you magically don't require less resources just because your install base is small.
Well, you have to narrow the hardware you support. That's the main thing that makes Linux on the desktop suck. Only Microsoft has succeeded in writing a highly compatible operating system, as you mention with a lot of resources. But there isn't the will for this, because people want Linux to run on everything. In this area, System76 are probably doing the best. But their hardware is not very good.
>I personally think that - many companies have realized there is no money to be made in supporting desktop Linux(i.e desktop itself, not a cross-platform application running on top of it), even if every one of those users paid the one time fee.
The point is that the fee is off the table because nobody would pay it. That's all I'm saying. Your argument is a non-sequitur. You say these engineering problems require hard work, and that there's not enough money in it even if everyone paid the fee. In that case, one would need to raise the fee until it can pay for the development that needs to be done.
But the market would not bear it. It already will not bear a standard operating system price.