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HP Clarifies Indemnification Offer For Linux Users
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.
Didn't see that one coming, did we?
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.
./ readers will get that far into the article :)
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
Did anyone really expect anything different from SCO? They'll spin it anyway they can. HP mearly looked at the situation, siad "hey, they can't legally do anything anyway" and issued what amounted to risk-free PR. Pretty pointless though. If I offer self-propelled airborn pork insurance, according the SCO's logic, pigs not only can fly, but do it all the time.
later...
SCO: HP is indemnifying users against us because they know we're right!
So, let me get this straight... According to SCO, HP is voluntarily indemnifying users because it knows that by doing so it will end up paying out big cash to SCO to make reparations for using SCO's code? Sure. Makes sense to me. (Can you spot the sarcasm?)
That's some really SCO'ed up logic for you!
Quoth he
"It's all academic anyway..."
This gets more amusing each day. It's like watching a bratty child try to argue against something they have little knowledge about.
HP: "We're offering indemnity to our customers who..."
SCO: "Ha! So you admit that your customers need indemnity!"
HP: "No, we're saying that should a lawsuit arise..."
SCO: "Haha! So you believe there should be lawsuits against Linux users!"
HP: "No, listen. We're saying that your claims..."
SCO: "HAHA! So you agree with our claims!"
HP: "Alright, listen you little..."
SCO: *fingers in ears* "I can't heeeeear you!"
So if I offer my personal security services to young college girls who don't want to be raped, does that imply that the girls who DON'T hire me WANT to be raped?
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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...
You gotta appreciate the turnaround time though. I wish my mechanic was this quick..
[SCO] I'm going to stab you in the heart with this stick cause you may be cheating with my wife!
[HP] Buy and wear our armor chestplate and if they really do stab you you'll be protected.
[SCO] SEE!!! They have proven by you wearing their chestplate that you are banging my wife!
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.
SCO representative Ima Loon pointed out that SCO had significantly more reports and comments then any other subject on /. except for Microsoft. "As we've previously shown with our big, big book of press clippings, the size and frequency of discussions concerning our company is the clearest indicator of the legitimacy of any legal claims that we are making." said Ima.
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?
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
Does Eric Raymond's gaurded comments since releasing Comparator indicate that the results were not favorable????
I don't think so. MD5 conparisons are good for finding exact matches not partial matches as would be used in a derivative/obsucated claim so I'm not sure his program would find all of what SCO is claiming. I don't know the details of how his program works but knowing the problem space it would take some time to run a comparison against copied snippets within a file since it would involve splitting up the file many different ways and comparing all of these chunks agains chunks of another source tree split up and MD5'd in a similar fassion. So to confirm a negative requires a lot of caution and due diligence to avoid getting egg on the face.
More importantly his program may find matches and each of those matches must then be researched to determine the source of the IP. Remember code can be indentical and still legal. So needing to do all the legal research required to validate each similarity as legal or not would take some time. I think any assumptions on what may or may not be found by Comparator is a bit premature given all the work needed to produce a meaningful conclusion. If Raymond simply threw out a number like "Comparator only found 2% similarity between code bases" he'd be just as guilty of FUD slinging as Mr. McBride claim that millions of lines of SYS V code match linux 2.4 kernal code.