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 ;)

Comments

Proof

[artios]

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.

Re:Proof

[AlricTheMad]

Actually I would wager that they are covering thier bottom line.
Tough for them to sell HP Hardware and Linux solutions if buys are worried about getting sued if they do buy.

AlricTheMad

Re:Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say there's bits of both in there. They're certainly mentioning it publicly as a marketing thing. "we'll cover you, that's a HP advantage" etc.

It's a risk/benefit thing. HP get the benefit of the world knowing they're covered under HP. HP know the risk SCO's claims mean anything is less than that benefit.

Re:Proof

[passthecrackpipe]

Proof of the fact that all commercial players are using scare tactics to sell kit, that is. Those vendors that offer "indemnification" provided you use their hardware or whatever catch there is, are just as bad as SCO.

Vendors are slowly realising that customers are increasingly clued-up about where, how, and on what they spend their money. I was with a customer recently that had been badgered and hammered around by Sun to upgrade their systems. The customer saw no good reason to do so, and subsequently, Sun came around to provide a "free systems review", with a resulting verdict that the software and (SPARC) hardware was out of date. The customer agreed about the software part, and deployed Linux across the ageing SPARC estate. The stuff is now faster, better, and easier to manage, and they recon they a have a few more years of life out of those systems.

Sun turned around and claimed that the systems are now unsupported - not a big deal, customer said. if it breaks we will buy new (Intel.... hehe). Sun then turned around and went to the CEO and the legal department, talking about indemnification, SCO, courtcases and the world coming to an end. Luckily, the customer was not fazed, and Sun lost a *lot* of goodwill in that place. However, other customers will be scared and bullied into going along.

If they only way you can flog your hardware is by using scare tactics, then you are *really* selling a pile of crap.....

Re:Proof

[Zak3056]

Proof of the fact that all commercial players are using scare tactics to sell kit, that is. Those vendors that offer "indemnification" provided you use their hardware or whatever catch there is, are just as bad as SCO

Err... what exactly are you looking for HP to do? Indemnify EVERYONE who runs linux?

Of COURSE they're limiting this to people who have HP hardware--thats what makes them HP customers!

Re:Wow

[Boiler99]

About that target though...HP has been respected in the business information services industry for quite some time (although merging with Compaq perhaps tarnished that, but hey that's another story ;) So really, companies who are not so familiar with SCO other than their recent run of litigations will see the lawsuit as more frivolous, and start to ignore it more and more.

Really, the greatest side effect of major players lining up against SCO is that it will help undo the bad rep SCO gave Linux with the PHB's who don't know anything about tech other than what they see in the Wall Street Journal.

Competitive Wager...

[SwansonMarpalum]

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.

This explains the drop in stock price

[budGibson]

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.

Re:Reinsured

[KillerLoop]

I'm afraid we are losing.

Color me paranoid, but maybe this was just some targeting practice at hurting Linux through the legal system. Up till now it was a roaring success. It stirred up a lot of fuss, and some are putting Linux on hold until the matter is resolved. Not a small feat for an obvious non-issue like the SCO claim.

Just keep on bombarding the community with stuff like that, and Linux will get tainted with "perennial legal problems". A library here, some kernel code there... and even if every single one of the accusations turns out to be utter bullshit, many people may get the impression that it's only a matter of time until one of the claims hits home and they get hurt.

Re:Good move on HP's part...

[Sevn]

No doubt. Very smart marketing people. The fact that HP did this just made me forget that they recentlylaid off a shitload of people but somehow managed to afford two brand new gulfstream fives that they really needed because their other private jets were 3 YEARS OLD.