598 karma · joined August 22, 2014
I think their work in providing a good UX for GNU\Linux operating systems is admirable and it's a very important step to really make something most would be happy to use.
With that said, according to elementary a good part of the donations they receive goes towards bug bounties, which are not limited to elementary OS itself but are also assigned to upstream projects.
Without getting hung up on phrases like "cheating the system", which is admittedly poor wording, I do agree with the base premise of their blog post: open source development has to be sustainable and they have chosen to ask the users directly for a contribution.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
It's hard to deny that an open source project with more funding has more chances of surviving and developing good software, and I think it's true that users need to be made aware of that.
A well-funded, sustanaible open source ecosystem is in the interest of all of us. Having an alternative to proprietary software is very important if we want to mantain at least the freedom of choice.
Or maybe change the outline to an outer glow?