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You're completely wrong on this. The software released under the GPL should not at all be assimilated to freeware and even Stallman encourages to sell GPL software. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html Companies pay Red Hat to get QA, support, liability and some level of interaction with the development community.

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I know its not actually freeware, that's why I used scare quotes. The thing is though, that under the purchasing rules we used when I was working for the DOD all software acquired free of charge was categorized as "freeware" and we couldn't use it in deliverables. Hence the use of Red Hat, we couldn't actually make use of their support because it was going on classified machines but the mere fact that they took our money meant that we could get past certification.

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