How do Linux repositories make money?

Question

to pay their bandwidth costs? Such as Debian.

Answer 1

donations, claiming damages from microsoft? who cares, as long as its free!!

Answer 2

Um... they don't. No, really. Linux works on soocialist ideas like mutual aid and brotherhood. Public universities and even corporations donate space on their high-power servers to further the cause of various linux distributions. They get nothing in return but name recognition by Linux users and a warm and fuzzy feeling. This is why distros like Arch don't want you to use the main download point; the team sometimes actually has to scrape together their own cash plus whatever they get in donations (if anything) to pay that bill. Often, even the Linux distro pages are hosted on donated bandwidth, and I know Debian runs pretty much solely on donated server hardware.  

Answer 3

Donations, selling commercial support packages, merchandise sales, etc. It's not easy.