rolling your own distro and the GPL (Re: [clue-talk] North Topic Track)

[Nate Duehr]

Jed S. Baer wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:54:38 -0600
> Nate Duehr wrote:
> 
>> Great hacker distro, still acting too immature to really be used where 
>> "big iron" Unix distros are really used.   (Mostly because there's no 
>> "one throat to choke" in Linux when something goes utterly wrong. 
>> Companies need to know they can kick something upside the head -- 
>> usually another company with plenty to lose -- if something goes wrong.)
> 
> In reality, have a look at the licensing agreements for any major software
> package. The ones I've looked at have a disclaimer, and the terms
> stipulate the the vendor has no liability for any loss occurring as a
> result of usage of their software. Maybe that's changed. But have you ever
> heard of anyone successfully suing Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, IBM, HP, or
> any other software company over data loss or corruption due to a softare
> bug?

Depends on what you mean by "successfully".  Lawsuits and the threat 
thereof usually aren't used when good old fiscal leverage can be.  It's 
far more effective to cancel a large order and threaten to switch to a 
competitor's product than it is to sue your business partners.

Money talks.  You kick public companies upside the head nowadays where 
it hurts.  Their quarterly earnings.

Their legal department is overhead they've already paid for.  Sales 
losses are far more important whilst investors continue to remain 
(insanely) focused on single quarters as a (poor) sign of overall 
company performance.

Nate