You can get commercial support for GNU/Linux. RedHat is a big player, and Canonical has commercial stakes also. For individuals, filing bug reports, and doing self-fixes may be a bit much to ask of some, but having open code is a powerful tool for corporations. With libre code, anyone can write a fix. The nerd at the CAD station, a sysadmin, or a 3rd party contractor. You aren't locked into the whims of a single company for support.
You're still mixing up the notion of "possible" and "responsible". At work, our group uses a proprietary in-house java software to do our work (
www.youtube.com/javasimulation for some examples). I've likely logged close to 50 bug reports since I started there at the start of the year. However, my role is not a programmer - I am an analyst (the person using the software to do the work it's designed for). Yes, with my background I'm quite sure that I
could fix the bugs for which I've filed reports, but
it's not my responsibility nor do I have the time to fulfill such a task. I have my own timeline and schedule to meet, and it's simply impractical for me to have to fix the bugs myself. We have dedicated programmers in our group who
are the responsible ones to fix the bugs and add the features that are needed.
Until we get to a future where currency doesn't drive most of what we do, money is king. My work gets billed by the hour (to our clients), and we would not be a competitive company if we were to be inefficient with our hours by having the analysts do a programmer's job (and likely end up with a lower quality product in the meantime).
@lopri - Comparing pricing of a "stable" commodity such as a license to a market that is as volatile as computer hardware (flooding, nVidia 680 shortages, raw material price fluctuations) is comparing apples to oranges. An Intel CPU is most expensive at its release, and only goes down in price from there until it reaches some set pricing. The only time I've seen a particular model of hard drive go up in price was after the flooding last year. Name a hardware product that is on the market that has gone up in price since its release (ignoring sale price fluctuations or EOL products) without a corresponding external effect to explain it.
Licenses are essentially infinite supply. It's a matter of finding a price point at which the developer will recuperate their costs in a given timeframe (usually until the next version comes around). There are more devices coming out in the next few years on which a Windows8 license will operate (Phones, tablets, PCs vs just PCs for Win7). If Microsoft can sell more licenses at a lower per-license cost they'll likely meet their revenue targets which is what matters most to them and their shareholders. In many ways, CPUs are in the same class since you're paying primarily for the R&D that's gone into the device and not the material cost. The actual cost of the metals and semiconductors in the die is a small fraction of what you paid for. If the cost of raw silicon goes up by 50%, Intel could probably absorb that without worrying too much. By comparison, if the price of iron ore went up by 50% you'd most certainly see an effect on car prices.
