[r_hoods_ghost]

I have worked in academia and I am aware of the restrictions on purchasing. But as an individual you can purchase software for yourself. You can encourage your students to purchase software. You can even make it a requirement of a course, in the same way as buying a textbook is.

I have never come across that is more reluctant to actually pay for the tools to do their job than devs. Hell we've even built a quasi religious cult in foss that revolves around not paying. Yes yes I know the "free" In foss is supposed to be free as in freedom, but in practice it ain't, it's all about free as in beer. See the gp and the offence taken at actually being asked to pay for the foundational tool they use to do their job.

[throwaway2056]

Which (reputed) university will allow for a sysadmin to tell students that they need to purchase Ubuntu to attend a course? Seriously, the sysadmin will get fired (at the least). Given costs of education (at least US) asking someone to buy RHEL for about $300 would be PITA (for poor students). Most sysadmins are invisible. And at our University we have about 100 Debian servers. Do you mean if we move them to Ubuntu (I personally) buy so many licenses? Are you working for Canonical?

Both sides should calm down. It is OK to criticise Ubuntu/Debian/RHEL. A restaurant critic does not have a restaurant. CKS anyway says he/they will move to Debian.