Paying for Ubuntu

TECHIES, TREKKIES, HACKERS AND SLACKERS.!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to get your opinion on the way Ubuntu is going. I remember hearing a while back that Canonical wasn't making money out of the distro and it made me think that sometime in the future they will consider the option of people buying it. Now I know they've probably said that it would always be free but, at the end of the day, it is still a business and they have overheads to meet.

So my question is, do you think this will happen and also who do you think this would have a domino effect on other distros.

I don't think they will. I think it will always be free to download, but they can always charge for a box CD/DVD edition like many distros already do. Heck even Slackware can be had in a nice pretty box and a labelled DVD etc from their store for about $30 and I think many regular Slackware users buy it to support the project and just have something physical.

Besides that there's the whole Ubuntu Software Centre with paid apps and the like... I think...and I hope, that it always be free to download. I don't think the general Linux community would take to kindly to it if went buy only

That would never happen. It goes against the whole open source concept, then you'd have to get the all the other thousand or so various distros to follow suit. There have been commercial Linux distros, most of them didn't last very long. Anyone remember Linspire? There's also Red Hat, but they are charging more for the support than they are the actual software.

Nar Ubuntu won't charge for the O.S itself.... I think they are using the fact that it is "free" to try and compete with the big boys and offer a Quality Operating System (ahem.... well maybe in a few years time when they sort their shit out)
They will likely just try and make as much money as they can from "paid for software via software centre" as more and more paid for software rolls in....... they make money on buying Music, UbuntuOne Storage etc..... They will probably find other services they can offer to make money from while still offering a Free Os as the most Strong offering of their Product Vs M$soft / Apple