There is a difference between Amundsen a seasoned explorer making the passage in a tiny 46 ton ship by hugging the coast and dodging ice and a 75 THOUSAND ton ship making the trip.
Here in the Faroes (at least in the capital), we have the best of both worlds. Free, and plenty of space.
In 2007, the fare for municipal busses was removes, and at the same time, more frequent trips were introduced (by 50% at day time).
The routes and schedule are managed by the City Council, the operated by the lowest bidding bus company.
So far, it has been successfull, but it had a bit of a bumpy start. The sudden increase in demand for busses, meant that there weren't enough busses to go around and some cheap, old ones were used. But the success has meant that there was a business case to upgrade the busses.
It's payed by tax payers via the Council. The Council is funded via income tax, currently at around 20%.
Unix is just a bunch of standards that a couple of OSes are implementing, including OS X, not something that adheres to any philosophy about how software should be distributed.
