For 3., I've been interested in the same. How would it work though? Would it include non-free components, or be open source? If it's open source, why would the majority of people pay?
I say this as someone who would definitely pay. I'd love to see something like an XPS developer edition, but with a (relatively) coherent graphics paradigm like OS X.
> If it's open source, why would the majority of people pay?
We could have paid access to the repositories. Yes anyone can redistribute it, but it's cumbersome and it gives you a delay for the bugfixes, so people with the ability to pay will prefer the official method. Especially if they know they're funding open-source and if they get a good service. However, to stay legit in the OSS ecosystem we need to redistribute part of the donations.
I say this as someone who would definitely pay. I'd love to see something like an XPS developer edition, but with a (relatively) coherent graphics paradigm like OS X.