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HP Offers Linux Purchasers Indemnification
PnViking writes points out this story in the Detroit News, writing "HP is now covering any claims from SCO if you bought Linux and have a support contract from them: '"We will provide full indemnity across the entire suite for any SCO-related action," said Martin Fink, HP's vice president of Linux. "If (customers) were to get sued by SCO, we would take over their defense and assume liability on their behalf."'" The catch is, you have to be running it on HP equipment ;)
Now that is what we call good solid evidence (as if we didn't have enough) that SCO is pulling stuff out of it's royal... A big company like HP, doesn't just all of a sudden decide it's going to defend against a lost case.
Free Ipod here
This is a good sign. I bet HP wouldn't do this without their lawyers being absolutely certain they have nothing to fear. Their conclusion must be the same as ours...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
This is something all the companies should have been doing from the beginning(cough cough)IBM(cough cough). Companies like to have someone to point the finger to if something goes wrong, and HP just painted a huge target on themselves ;-)
Helloooo... IBM, are you listening??? Wait, wasn't HP the supposed Fourtune 500 company that bought a SCO license?
-brain
Presumably HP are doing this because they can now lay off the risk with an insuring for a low enough price to make it worthwhile. So this doesn't just mean HP are slam dunking SCO, but others - who have no direct IT interests - are doing it too. We are winning.
I guess the reasoning there is you can't be sued if you can't get the product (HP hardware) to work.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
SCO had better hurry up and think up some sweet smelling bullshit to keep that stock price inflated. News like this will start a tumble. All you people short selling SCO are about to make a bundle.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
They're going to get some good press out of this, pick up some new customers (especially on the corporate side) and at the same time generate some goodwill for themselves.
AND at the same time they likely won't have to invest much in legal work - SCO doesn't really have a case (as has been demonstrated) and doesn't have the money to take on another big lawsuit anyways (think they would go after HP while the redhat/ibm lawsuits are out there? Not likely... their warchest has to be getting a bit less weighty these days)
Finally a company with enough courage to protect their customers. I wonder if anyone else will follow?
HP must be rather confident that SCOs claims wont hold up in court. I feel somewhat reassured by that.
... but the overall image of HP should get advantage of this initiative.
I also think that HP doesn't start a campaign like this without being convinced that SCO claims have no ground. I wonder if they discovered something we don't know...
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
You have to be using HP hardware. Fine, at least it demonstrates one avenue how to capitalise on the GPL :-)
Having said that, I expect Big Blue to follow this up with a reversal on their current stance. Having poured in so much money into Linux, it would appear rather hypocritical not to.
Thanks for the best news I've seen here in a while.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
It's entirely possible that HP is making a calculated gamble that they can steal IBM's potential Linux customers out from under them by offering indemnification, even if they aren't 100% sure they have a defensible position.
Of course this brings up the point I was discussing with a friend of mine the other day: SCO's entire case for licensing binary versions of portions of the Linux kernel relies on forgiving them for ignorantly distributing these portions under the GPL. If such a courtesy is extended to SCO due to their ignorance, I doubt it would be denied to customers who were ignorantly violating SCO Group's so called intellectual property.
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
The only reason HP is doing this is to attract more consumers to their own platform/hardware. And you know what? Who cares. The result is the same: indemnification for potential new users means SCO's FUD will have less of an effect on Linux adoption.
Yet again, Ayn Rand is shown to be correct.
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Maybe Carli signed her deal with the devil already ? That would explain why they can be so certain.
This is not a signature.
How much you want to bet HP paid for a "SCO Linux License" so they could "legally" distribute linux.. notice that it HAS to run on HP hardware..
There is still that "unknown" licensee of SCO's supposed linux license..
This decision will hopefully manoeuvre SCO into the courtroom (or into shutting up) and finally being forced to tell people what IP has been infringed, if any.
I prefer to get my IT news from the Hindustan Times. Seriously though, it has a little more/different information that may be worth checking out.
SCO's stock price took a little 5% dive at the end of the day yesterday. This must have been the news.
It only makes sense for systems integrators like HP and IBM to support Linux. They are providing a service in putting their systems together and want to catch as much of the value-add as possible. Paying a rent to Microsoft detracts from that.
I think the investors are starting to realise what they are up to (finally)... Why don't they just read slashdot?!? (Slightly tongue in cheek)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOX
HP probably doesn't think SCO has got a chance at all, and see the possibility for getting some good PR (they certainly need it, as they are not doing too well in the computer market), both in the IT community and the public at large.
Heck, if they are lucky, maybe even a few people will be lured into buying a HP computer. :)
Perhaps my coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but why would anyone believe that HP would assume liability for people who may not even be customers? If they're going to be doing your company this favor, shouldn't it at least prove it's an HP customer? That seems pretty reasonable to me!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
A
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
That this is stupid. Indemnification is a strawman. This is like arguing with it.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
This may a good move for HP to attract or steal customers but I'm not sure if this is good for Linux as a whole.
First this may strengthen and not weaken SCO's claims ("If SCO is wrong as anybody claims why do they offer me indemnification?")
Second I think that smaller companies have a harder sell now to bring Linux to customers since they don't have the deep pockets to give the same indemnifications for their customers.
If you can only sell Linux with an indemnification program only the Big Boys can do it and that is not something I want to see.
bye, Chris
Perhaps HP lawyers just read the news.
SCO has no intention to sue Linux end-users
And there has to be limitations and fineprint to HP offer. No way HP if offer protection from every SCO case out there. Does that mean I can actively steal SCO code and be free of all legal consequences as long as its run on HP hardware?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
They did sue IBM for violating "their" IP which has nothing to do with Linux or the GPL.
Sure, their execs are making a bundle, but they're not going to use it to launch lawsuits that would force them to reveal what code they're claiming to own, especially since they know they wouldn't win.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Though in reflection, their egregeous approach to an unsubstantiated claim was bound to provoke a backlash. And it was bound to be something that people would take advantage of.
Did SCO even see this? My guess, no. They're up their in their own little world.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Well, yes, it's entirely possible. On the other hand, why should HP subsidize your purchase of a Dell CPU with a legal indemnity? This is not an altruistic idea on their part. They intend to profit from the indemnity. Software hardware and service contracts are all profit centres.
The nice thing about this is that it puts the shoe to the likes of MS saying "so why don't Linux vendors indemnify their customers if this is a slam-dunk for Linux?" Well, we now have at least one large manufacturerer effectively saying "We think that SCO's blatherings are bogus -- and we're willing to put our money where our mouth is."
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Hewlett Packard was a *member* and *speaker* of SCO Forum 2003:
http://www.caldera.com/2003forum/agenda.html
SCO and HP are friends. I would not be surprised if SCO made a deal with HP to let them off the hook in order for HP to do this little indemnification campaign to sell more of their computers.
What can you do about this? Do not buy HP products, or products from people who deal with SCO.
If SCO had the guts to take on HP, they would have had the guts to take on Red Hat. In actively running away from Red Hat they have invited this.
SCO has no intention to sue Linux end-users
Originally, SCO had no intention of suing anyone at all:
According to McBride, "obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor will not, make such a claim."
But at the beginning of August:
"The legal liability for Linux clearly rests with the end user."
"We have the ability to go to users with lawsuits and we will if we have to."
McBride and company have never kept their story straight in the past - expecting them to do so now that they've made another statement we like would probably be overly optimistic.
The catch is, you have to be running it on HP equipment ;)
Do you HONESTLY expect them to cover your butt if you build your own systems and download linux from redhat for free? THAT is why people say OS people are commies. You expect someone to give you something for nothing.
Then other posts on here staying oh its just a marketing ploy by HP. And you guys are the EXACT SAME people who a week ago were saying "why don't these companies protect us from lawsuits???"
I say bravo HP! I build my own systems for my business and for myself personally, but I do recommend servers for my customers, and I will recommend HP for linux systems from here on out.
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
It's not just about the legality of a Linux user's position, it's the legal cost of defending that position. HP's indemnification means that its users won't have the prospect of legal costs to worry about. It is the USA, after all, where your status in court depends on what you can afford to pay a lawyer.
(this is not a
Fear not.
On the history of UNIX and on the details of intellectual property law, the average Nasdaq investor is less knowledgable than the average slashdotter.
But on the mechanics of business disputes and the running of companies, they are more knowledgable. They are not idiots, and they will interpret this as "HP's lawyers have spent a lot of time looking at this, and HP are betting BIG MONEY that SCO are full of shit."
SCO's response was issued this morning. This just gets more insane each passing week. My BSD discs will arrive in the next couple of days, so it's kind of moot for me, but Jesus, those SCO fuckers are crazy.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Wait, wasn't HP the supposed Fourtune 500 company that bought a SCO license?
No.. Although it was speculated at the time. Also, HP was an original sponsor of the SCO users conference, but pulled out.
The latest 10-Q quarterly report from SCO makes it clear that Sun was the other licensee:
We initiated the SCOsource effort to review the status of these existing licensing and sublicensing agreements and to identify others in the industry that may be currently using our intellectual property without obtaining the necessary licenses. This effort resulted in the execution of two license agreements during the April 30, 2003 quarter. The first of these licenses was with Sun Microsystems, Inc. ("Sun"), a long-time licensee of the UNIX source code and a major participant in the UNIX industry, and was a "clean-up" license to cover items that were outside the scope of Sun's initial UNIX license. The second license was to Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft")"
You're sure about that? From another article on the same announcement:
I especially like the part: "Rather than deny the existence of substantial structural problems with Linux, as many open source leaders have done, HP is acknowledging that issues exist". That's just classic. In reality, HP is doing the opposite, and stating that they believe there's no problem, and that they're willing to put their own legal muscle behind the assertion. If HP believed there were problems with Linux, I'd think that they'd rather just drop it as soon as possible, rather than open themselves up to legal liability.
Then again, lets go over the facts. Red Hat has no right to believe their likely to be sued by SCO, according to SCO's recent legal filings, yet Red Hat is both a user and a distributor of Linux, and we are told that all users of Linux will be liable to SCO for damages from the misuse of SCO's copyrights and trade secrets. We're told that vendors should provide indemnification to users if they truly believe there's no IP problems with Linux, and the moment one does, SCO uses it as proof that there's IP problems with Linux. They tell us, their lawsuit with IBM is about copyright, trade secrets and patents, when their lawsuit is more about contract law than any of the IP laws. They announce they'll send out 1,500 invoices, and never do. They get "disappointed" when Red Hat decides they don't wish to blindly pay licensing fees to SCO, and try to get a declaratory judgement from the courts instead of being haunted by the spectre of a SCO lawsuit for years to come. I just want to know one thing -- Why is anyone in the press still listening to them when they obviously can't get their story straight?
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
After SCO said that, HP's only comment was that that was "an interesting spin." I'd take that to mean that it's definitely HP's intention that their indemnification reflect badly on SCO's case.