Are you saying that you are okay with the fact that EVERY AmigaOne owner including those who have zero intrest in YDL would be required to pay extra on the off chance he may want to run YDL one day?
That's why I call it a Linux tax.
I think I have to agree with Ben here, but also with Seehund on the difference between this situation and the OS4 hardware policy.
I agree with Ben in that:
If indeed TSS wants Mai to pay $20 for each Teron sold (since it can run YDL), I would call that Linux tax. The consumer will be paying for the potential (unlike in the case of firmware which is more likely needed and not reflashed), and some may resent that.
However, whether or not that is okay business-wise depends on the arrangement between Mai and TSS. For Mai, YDL does add value, and one way for Mai to pay TSS for this added value would certainly be to pay royalties. Another would be to pay a substantial one-time development fee and then take that in any case from the board price. (Third would be to expect YDL to do their OS on their own and not pay for it at all - in this case development would not be guaranteed.)
As a comparison, I guess the firmware arrangement with Hyperion falls into the first or second category, even though it is open source work (and as we remember, open source isn't free beer, it is free speech)... And again, nothing wrong with that.
So, in any case, if Mai wants to guarantee YDL on their Teron with some kind of monetary incentive to TSS to add value to Teron, the consumer will pay for that in the price of the board in one way or the other (be that royalties or some one-time fee). The small volume and open source means that separate sales channels (i.e. shrink-wrap) are less likely to provide YDL with such an incentive - and that is what this "tax" probably comes down to...
Does Mai want to pay for a Linux provider to add value to their board?
But yes, sure, I agree with Ben that it is a Linux tax because one way or the other, if Mai wants the deal for sure, (TSS will not work for free, as I'm sure Hyperon would not have made the firmware for free even if one can now download it for free) they may have to pay for it - and eventually the consumer will pay for that.
I'm not sure if this is what Seehund meant as well, but I agree at least with Ben.
I do agree with Seehund on the opinion that this is unlike the OS4 situation though. TSS is not restricting the market for Linux distributions by asking for this "Linux tax", they are only looking for a revenue model to pay for their work.
While this is certainly true for OS4 as well, the difference there is that there are no other AmigaOS 4.0 distributions and the licensing process there will limit the market in a way I believe is damaging to the product by adding an additional obstacle to the existing technical obstacles. There is simply more to the "OS4 tax" issue, than there is to the "Linux tax" issue. The former (if implemented) artificially limits the market while looking for a solid revenue model, while the latter, well, only touches the revenue model.
I believe the argument of limiting markets is an important theme of Seehund's argument and petition. Also, since OS4 is proprietary and could be sold shrink-wrapped better than open source, not all the same arguments apply. Even though piracy is an issue to consider, you will still very likely sell more closed source to a small technically oriented market than you would open source. You can also legally put in a removable dongle (e.g. USB), whereas you cannot really dongle open source software.
It is different for OS4 and YDL for this very reason.
