Would you pay $10 for a *perfectly* working Fedora / Ubuntu

I'm in the same boat here (especially frustrated with cold boot and suspend/resume issues), and I actually came here today to see if anything new was out there for the AAO.

So, yes, I would gladly pay ten bucks (or its pounds/euro equivalent) to support a project like this. I've been keeping an eye on Kuki and will also add Linux4One to the list, but I might have to bite the bullet and reinstall XP just so I know my stuff works as it should, until a Linux OOB distro comes out for us.

 

That's what I recently did. I love linux like a mistress but after running an nLited XP on the AAO it's just so nice to have *everything* work as intended. I'm keeping an eye on what Kuki does too but I think it'll be hard to switch over now.

 

A note on the principle of free software: even though Linux is free, the tight software integration of a bunch of specific hardware requires specialized knowledge(i.e. to resolve conflict/compatibility issue between the OS and devices or device/device) and a dedicated team. The idea is not business at all (even though there is a business incentive). The idea is to come up with a fully, perfectly working and optimized version of our preferred Linux distribution (not only Linpus). The idea of funding is to have the guarantee of a high quality integration in a short amount of time and some kind of support afterward if any bug is discovered. When you pay, you expect... and the other party deliver. There is incentive. And by the way, $10 is a negligible amount. I am sure many of you guys spend much more on beer.

The commercial success of a piece of complex digital hardware depends greatly on its software support. What good to have the fastest and best computer with a hard-to-use/user friendless piece of software? By now almost 2.5 millions AAO are sold, many are the SSD version. If only 200K people contribute $1 I would guess that it would be sufficient to reach this goal (since Linux is "free" - only labour cost, taking into assumption the development infrastructure is already there) And what represents $1 nowadays anyway? a cup of coffee?

Many people buy a Mac because it is trouble free. Similarly, a perfectly working Linux (other than Linpus) will make a lot of AAO user happy. To Acer this would mean increased sale... and if the invest wisely, to provide better product in the future. To Linux, increased popularity... and more support in the future. If only Acer have this vision... not only the pursuit of a perfect piece of hardware...

 

With respect, no one is in a position to guarantee anything. Will all donations be returned if the development team cannot deliver in an agreed timescale? Would the developers be of a higher calibre because they are taking on paid work instead of freely contributing to an open source project?

Sure, $10 is not much for most people, but when you hand over $10 in a bar to pay for your beer you are very, very likely to receive your beer or your money back if you don't. I suspect that many people, when feeling charitable, would rather speculate $10 on a cure for childhood cancers than a patch for some open source software.

Guarantees aside, I would imagine that if a development team did agree to take on this work on a paid basis then they would be reluctant to start until sufficient funding was proven to be in place. It could take quite a while to amass enough seed funding when it is trickling in $10 at a time and initiatives such as Linux4One already have a head start. It is quite possible that a free solution may be found before the funded project delivers.

Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea and it would be great if it worked, but sadly I think that it is unworkable.

 

Would the result of the hired staff be shared with the whole community?

In the next days (or week?) a new version of Kuki Linux will be released. Hardware support seems to be in place as it will use a kernel configured by sickboy, which many already use with Ubuntu today. If power management (including start-up and suspend) is properly setup I would expect this to be what many are looking for.
Maybe it's a better idea to donate the €/£/$10 to the Kuki development! I don't think they have the ability to receive donation in place right now, but I feel it would be a good suggestion.

 

interesting this thread, it is not hard to create an install and clone it, my aspire one is fully working and I plan to clone it onto a virgin aspireone using remastersys backup to create an iso with all the customizations so far.

only thing I would require is some ftp storage for the completed iso

at the moment I'm poking round linpus for any missing gems