[CLUE-Tech] GPL loopholes

[Kirk Rafferty]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 12:11:20PM -0600, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> And it would be the "right thing to do" for Linux users to ante up a few
> bucks for the distros they use. Sadly, many don't because they don't
> HAVE to do it. 

I didn't want to jump into this discussion, since it seems to be moving
on very nicely without me, but I've been itching for someone to bring
this point up.  Thanks Zonker.

A friend of mine works at a big company (healthcare, very profitable
company) who shall go nameless.  They run about 15 RH boxes in production.
Anyone that's worked with Red Hat Network knows that your first machine
per account is free.  Additional support contracts are $60/machine/year.
To avoid paying the support contract, they have 15 different Red
Hat Network accounts.  This is pathetic, and does more to harm
free/open-source software than it helps.

I see a lot of people complaining about companies violating the GPL (most
of which turn out to be untrue).  I wish more people would complain about
the end-users.  If you're a student, I can see going free-as-in-beer.
But if you've got a paying job, or if you're making money off free
software, you need to be kicking a little back in.  The revolution doesn't
run by the grace of St. IGNUcious alone, it needs a little bread too. :)

-k