Re: FSF : lackeys of their corporate masters

[Bernd Jendrissek]

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In article <x5llk5nyzd.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
>According to your logic, companies like RedHat (not SuSE, RedHat)
>should be dead, because they produce only reproducible stuff.

No, they (RedHat at least, IIRC) also sell something less tangible: the
guarantee that the software is legally GPL'ed, and an indemnity to
defend you in court over your use of the software, if it ever comes to
that.  (One of) the service they offer, then, is transforming a
basically unbounded potential liability (ranging from zero to infinity)
into a fixed one ($50 or whatever it costs).

Does anyone know if any insurance companies offer policies that cover
this sort of thing?  Or is RedHat a covert insurance company themselves?
(This also emphasises how things like the GPL are good for society, in
that they transform the problem of making a profit from a matter of
being deft at divide-and-conquer and vendor-lockin, to a matter of being
good at what you do.  If they're good at what they do (diligently
checking copyright status), the insurance portion of their business will
be very profitable.  Everyone wins.)

- -- 
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