Ask Slashdot: "Pseudo-Free" Software in Major Distributions?

PugMajere submitted the following: "I've been looking into using SSH and rdist to distribute around 2 gig worth of data to about 1000 machines nightly. Rdist (v6.1.5) would be perfect for this, as it automatically forks to send data to multiple machines, but it isn't totally free software. The problem is with SSH. To use SSH with rdist you need the server side of SSH on each of the machines that are running the rdist server. The licensing fees for this are simply astronomical for this kind of application. While researching all this I noticed that Red Hat includes rdist (6.1.5) in its distribution. I also now know the rdist license terms. Rdist isn't free to use in a commercial setting if it involves another company. So, if you have two companies running Linux, that are collaborating on some project, and sharing some of the data using Linux and rdist, they owe Magnicomp money. My real question here is: Does anyone else realize this? How many other packages have similar arrangements that are going to cause major headaches in the future?"