They do charge for extra benefits, if you need them. But you can deploy a server to production today on Debian and be fine. Unless your in the case where you need to pay for support (regulatory).

Just because RH, Suse and Canonical charge, does not mean those are requirements. You can always opt to have linux and not pay for their support.

This is a valid point, but I wonder how many installs are managed through a commercial contract. My assumption is that it would be a small number of high value contracts, but the bulk of installs are just free Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora installs.

yes but here's the main thing:

- you can choose to pay RedHat, Suse and Canonical

- you cannot choose not to pay Microsoft

[Removed comment because it responded to wrong parent]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41038604#41038791