[megraf]

Considering the scale of ImageMagick- $629 is a very, very small amount of money considering the value that IM has generated.

[CogitoCogito]

Have you considered volunteering to pay for and run the signing infrastructure?

[keepamovin]

There's a better way to see this: once can make a statement about the principle of the necessity of having transactions to exchange value, but not have a particular demand for the offered good or service themselves. I think that's what's going on here, so it might be better to keep these seeming "gotcha" type questions, which are irrelevant, either out of the discussion, or at least remember how they are misplaced! :)

[midasuni]

629 centss, Or 6 cents, is too much. It’s not the cost, it’s the walled garden. Same with iPhone development - at least when I looked at it - you couldn’t it’s download a Free sdk and get hacking, you had to apply and agree to all sorts of onerous legal restrictions.

Compare that to the days of dos, where you could type “qbasic” and away you went

[kergonath]

The problem is that available funding is not commensurate with value generated. And the value is in the hands of some companies that have very little incentive to give much of it to the upstream project.