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

[Jef Barnhart]

On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 10:46, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> 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
> 

This is just my opinion, nothing more.

With the games that SCO is playing in the courts and the media. IBM can
not and should not say anything more than they have already have. SCO in
court and in the media would twist it to read as an admission of guilt.
Look what happened with HP. 

SCO: A general call for all Linux vendors to "indemnify" their users
from litigation.

HP:  You buy from us and you indemnified.

SCO: See HP has proved that there is a problem.

WHAT?!... kind of BS is that.

What HP is doing is trying to capitalize on the fact that SCO was also
saying that nobody would indemnify the users. HP, if they were smart has
been looking at the code and the history of the code and determined that
there is not that big of a problem if there is in fact one at all. The
other thought that I had was that HP did buy the SCOsource, remember the
unnamed buyer?, and feels that hey we have all the basses covered and
lets tell people.

Read through grocklaw.com the people that are posting have brought up
some good points.