this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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Well I can tell you I get downvoted for mentioning zorin and from comments it would seem it because they have a paid option. The funny thing is I get complaints because the paid option does have a perk (a gui chooser for emulating a osx or choice of several windows versions) and a linux distor should not be doing that but I also get the reverse that the paid perk is a stupid thing that is not worth it and pointless. Granted paying gets support the usual perk. I kinda thought ubuntu had some sort of enterprise thing to get formal support but maybe only suse and redhat did that. So there are definately some folks that get something in their craw if a paid option is present. I will say I hope zorin is passing on at least half of anything it gets to ubuntu who should be passing back to debian who should pass back to kernel development. I mean zorin is really pretty stock ubuntu lts with a bunch of preinstalled software and some gui tweaks so that the computer is pretty good to go right after installation. I guess though most respins are like that. Just prechosen configs and software packaged together.
I think there's an issue with who does the work and who gets paid. Zorin is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. The vast majority of the work is done by people who contribute their time to Debian. Ubuntu does a significant amount of work on top, especially around security patching. Zorin does less as they use Ubuntu's repos. So if I pay $100 to Zorin, I end up paying people who did the least amount of work for making Zorin OS. Worse, I did not at all improve the sustainability of Zorin, if an important package maintainer in Debian stops donating their time and Ubuntu doesn't pick up the slack, Zorin's in trouble. This is why merely paying for some open source project may not be enough or the right thing. It's also not clear at all who I should pay unless I spend a lot of time looking into it. It's a problem and there may not be a market solution as these large FOSS projects aren't market phenomena.