JBoss Offers Lawsuit Indemnification

prostoalex writes "JBoss Group offered its customers indemnification from potential legal problems related to patent violations and copyright lawsuits. According to Bob Bickel, JBoss VP, the move is intended to give customers more peace of mind when deciding whether to go with open-source software." The article also mentions Jboss' legal challenge to Apache Geronimo, of which Bickel said "...the letter to the Apache Software Foundation was never intended to be made public and said the conflict has been blown out of proportion."

Comments

Empty offers..

[grub]

Indemnification from who and what exactly? That's like offering supernova insurance, only suckers will buy.

Re:Empty offers..

[American AC in Paris]

That's like offering supernova insurance, only suckers will buy.

Sure, you say that, but I'll be laughing all the way to the bank the next time our sun explodes.

Re:Empty offers..

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Hey, that's required in the Beatelguis system! I was going to buy a summer place out there, but between the commute and the cost of insurance it was out of the question.

I'd laugh but my great grandfather had a place out where the crab nebula is now. It had some lovely blue siding. It blew all over the fricken place.

Re:Just like SCO!

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole "Pay us and you won't be sued" thing sure sounds like white-collar extortion to me.

Slow down and read it again.

They aren't charging anything for idemnification. Even if they did, it wouldn't be anything remotely like SCO. SCO is the one doing the suing. Companies like IBM and HP are protecting their customers from SCO. A more apt analogy would compare JBoss to IBM or HP in this case.

RTFA bois

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 50-100 commercial customers are 'covered' by this. Anyone else who has simply downloaded JBoss and uses it (which is the vast majority of their 'user base') is still screwed if the reason for this actually comes to pass.

IOW, if you want to be 'indemnified' then you have to buy JBoss, which is kinda dumb since it's supposed to be 'free'. Heh. Yay open source!

Re:RTFA bois

[enjo13]

How else do you expect this to work? JBoss is going to cover the costs of lawsuits for those that never contributed to JBoss the company in the first place?

JBoss is 'free', and if you choose to use in the 'free beer' sense then you take on the risk of dealing with lawsuits. That's pefectly in keeping with the ideology of open source.. with freedom comes responsibility, and by taking advantage of something that is free you assume the risk of whatever comes out of that.

If you choose to use JBoss the group, then they will guarantee you that it won't end up costing you lawsuit money if the lawyers come knocking. The code is free, the project is free, but the group that is using the project as a business is not. They charge money because this is how they make their living. Indemnification is just one more value-add that the JBoss commercial entity provides, and it's a good one in my opinion.

Question

[TnkMkr]

I have a questin about this whole indemnification thing. Why would I as someone who purchased or was even give a product from a comercial entity be worried about being sued if the comercial entity was using tech in violation of a patent?

I mean as I understand it, it would be like all of the people who own a Xboxs are suddenly told that they have to pay Sony and additional $200 or be sued because MS used some propritary hardware in their counsle. Why wouldn't just MS be stuck holding the bag? Are not the customers protected by a good faith purchase agreement or something? Or would the task of sueing MS to get your $200 dollars back be left up to you (or some class action lawsuit)?

I am sure I am oversimplifying the matter, but I'm hopping this be a starting point for an explination.

Thanks