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HP Clarifies Indemnification Offer For Linux Users

Posted by timothy on from the do-scos-respond-to-mace dept.

After HP extended an offer of indemnification to users who purchase Linux through HP, SCO issued a strange press release: in it, SCO claims that HP's action actually supports SCO's claims that "issues exist" with the Linux kernel's legal status. In an article at NewsForge (like Slashdot, part of OSDN), HP's Martin Fink roundly denies SCO's backhanded interpretation; a followup story quotes Bruce Perens, Linus Torvalds and ESR on the HP offer. Linus: "Indemnification is wonderful. It might be a cynical marketing tactic, but if people are asking for it, why not?" The first article also points out the limited nature of HP's indemnification claims, which are definitely not blanket protection -- installing patches not approved by HP could well make them wash their hands of your machine.

4 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. HP are rightfully covering their asses by Chmarr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Although HP's disclaimer to indemnify your machine if you make modifications to the Linux kernel yourself, I think HP had every right to do this.

    After all, what would stop you INTENTIONALLY adding in copyright SysV code to the kernel, and then asking HP to legally protect you from something that you should be responsible for yourself.

    This is, of course, pointed out in the NewsForge article, but I doubt that more than half of ./ readers will get that far into the article :)

  2. HP code review? by mikeee · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What's interesting is that HP obviously has access to SCO's Holy System V Magic Code (TM), and undoubtedly did their own comparisons before issuing this annoucement...

  3. Re:Things that make you go hmmmmm. by sloppydawg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All clues point to Computer Associates as the unnamed Fortune 500 company.

    If you match this article's date with the date of SCO's announcement of a fortune 500 sell it all adds up.
    news.com article: CA settles Canopy contract suit

    I'm sure Canopy cut them a good deal in order to claim they had a fortune 500 company signing up for SCOSource.

  4. Rebuff only at newsforge by nedwidek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As much as I like newsforge, I have an issue with the fact that I have only seen the rebuff there. Going to the yahoo summary page for SCOX shows the story on HP's indemnity offer, SCO's stupid press release, and then a couple of newswire articles about the offer and SCO's pr with no rebuttal to the SCO position.

    HP needs to clarify its position in the main stream press. What impression are investors being left with?

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