[CLUE-Talk] HP to Protect Customers from Linux Claims

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 10:20, Kirk Rafferty wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 07:38:50AM -0600, Rita Gibson wrote:
> > Thought the group might be interested in seeing this article. It was
> > forwarded to me by a non-CLUE friend. Lots of folks are watching this
> > lawsuit talk!
> 
> Frankly, I'm surprised IBM didn't protect their customers from the outset.
> It would have demonstrated that IBM are not only serious about Linux, but
> would have also discouraged SCO from suing end-users willy-nilly.  IBM
> may have even landed some hardware and/or support deals from the deal.

You're kidding, right? This whole imdemnification thing is massive FUD. 

Here's how I see it, though I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm missing
something... 

If IBM had taken the bait, SCO would have been going after their end
users like a shark after chum. Why do you think they concocted the whole
thing in the first place? Imagine this scenario -- IBM says "okay, we'll
cover your legal costs" and two weeks later, IBM is covering legal fees
for 1,500 companies using IBM Linux products... The lawyers for SCO can
churn out 1,500 form-filings while each and every company sued has to
hire lawyers if they wish to fight. SCO can't hurt IBM alone through the
legal battle unless they actually win -- but if they get to stick IBM
with legal costs for 1,500 customers... things start to look a bit
different. 

Besides, what HP is doing is "protecting" its customers from SCO, and
only SCO. Which means, more than likely, they have a deal with SCO
already, or are pretty damn sure that SCO is unlikely to proceed against
their users. SCO recently filed their SEC papers, showing Sun and
Microsoft as their major backers -- I wonder if the next quarterly
filing will show HP taking out a "license." 

When this whole indemnification thing started, SCO and analysts were
calling on IBM to indemnify users against ANY legal claims against
Linux, which is stupid -- any idiot can file a lawsuit. If a major
vendor says "hey, I'll cover your legal costs for any suits against this
software" they're on the hook for any suit any rabid-dog failing company
like SCO cares to file. Note that HP is not protecting its users in case
Sun decides to file suit, or Microsoft, or SGI, or anyone else -- just
SCO. 

> This might be the time for Red Hat to jump into the fray, and indemnify
> anyone running Red Hat Enterprise with a current RHN contract.  It would
> be a great reason for anyone running the "hobbyist" version in a production
> environment to upgrade.

Yeah, I'm sure RH has the spare bucks sitting around to deal with the
influx of lawsuits. 

It's a damn shame HP was willing to go down this road. 

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net