🚀 go-pugleaf

>Someone writes:
>>	I don't see how you have a company that markets its skills in maintaing
>>GNU code since the work they do  would be publically available.

In article <C17to2.K92@lysator.liu.se> pen@lysator.liu.se (Peter Eriksson) writes:
> [some reasons why it might work.]

Here's another reason:

It's not "publicly available" unless one of the two parties involved
(the maintainer or their customer) chooses to make it so.  It appears
that there is a market for maintenance of free software for in-house
use.  Cygnus Support has been in business for a few years now doing
just this (their customers are not all in-house users, but I know of
several that are.)

This may not work in all markets, but "not all" is clearly not the
same as "none".  I think it is less likely to work for "mass market
software", but I also don't think anyone has made a serious experiment
of it either.  (PC) Software vendors claim a great deal of illegal
software copying already goes on, yet the vendors still manage to stay
in business.  Thus, software copying does not necessarily mean that
the software producers cannot make money.

David Chase
Sun