Ubuntu

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.