Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Red Hat's Open Source Assurance Program

Posted by michael on from the safety-blanket dept.

scubacuda writes "ZDnet and others report that Red Hat now offers the 'Open Source Assurance Program' as protection for customers if they get hit with a copyright infringement case from the SCO Group. From their website: 'A key feature of the Open Source Assurance Program is an Intellectual Property Warranty. The warranty ensures, that in the event that an infringement issue is identified in Red Hat Enterprise Linux software code, Red Hat will replace the infringing code. Red Hat's warranty assures customers that they can use Red Hat Enterprise Linux and related solutions without interruption. The warranty is available for all customers having a valid registered subscription to Red Hat Enterprise Linux or related solutions.'" Following close behind Novell and Hewlett-Packard, but it looks like Red Hat is not actually indemnifying their customers like Novell and HP, but rather is simply promising to fix any real copyright problems moving forward, which is something I think we would assume they would do in any case.

6 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. indemnity? by trix_e · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not sure having Red Hat indemnify me or my company would give me the warm fuzzies anyway...

    for indemnification to be meaningful you have to assume that the pockets behind it are deep enough to be able to actually pay out and protect you when (god forbid) the time comes.

    Red Hat doesn't have enough of a track record for their promise to protect me to mean too much to me.

    Yeah, replacing the ostensibly offending code is nice, but it won't get me off the hook if I've already been using something that has been found to be infringing.

    With all that said you have to really believe that there is a reasonable shot of SCO succeeding for any of this to be terribly meaningful to you...

    --
    No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
  2. Re:Can't indemnify by trix_e · · Score: 4, Insightful

    huh?

    if you can't indemnify 3rd parties, who the heck can you indemnify? That's the very definition of the word, to protect another party against damage or loss...

    --
    No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
  3. Red Hat Transmits the Community Offer ... by leoaugust · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Linux Community has already offered to rip out the infringing code and replace it once it is identified. Red Hat has understood that the community is going to live to its word and has formalized this into an offer of "Intellectual Property Warrant." This formal offer on behalf of the community may be more acceptable to the business folks rather than the diffuse commitments of the Linux Community. I think that's all there is to it.

    --
    To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies ...
  4. SCO's flawed strategy by Crayola · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This isn't just a matter of Red Hat "doing what they should" in case of copyright infringement -- they're offering to be the ones to fix copyright violations in Linux even if they were never the ones who copied the code. This clears up the whole "who'll fix it?" issue for corporate customers. (Of course, every Linux developer under the sun has offered to do the same, but this is a legal deal that CIOs can sink their teeth into).


    The problem SCO is facing is this: they want to sell Linux "licenses" because their intellectual property is supposedly in there. And let's be clear -- it's not patent, trade secret, or trademark IP but copyright IP. But as soon as they say "we own this", the code can get yanked within days or weeks and re-written. So the licenses are worthless, which is why they're being so coy about pointing to the code (aside from silly claims on the ABI headers)


    Of couse, they're suing IBM, alleging contract violations for letting their Super Special (and mysteriously Secret) stuff into Linux and claiming AIX, etc is a derivative of UNIX system V. And maybe there is a thin legal thread that might encumber AIX.


    But who signed that contract on behalf of Linux? No one. Linux might have a few lines of copied code, but with no contract with SCO, there's no legal reason SCO gets to "own" Linux by calling it a derivative -- you'd need a contract for that.


    So even if they're right, they're hosed. And I have my doubts about how right they are.

  5. Peace of mind for the customer by aquabat · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If we assume SCO somehow convinces a judge that they own something in Linux, then the most they can do to an end user is demand that the user either sign a contract that allows them to continue using that part of Linux, or stop using that part of Linux.

    RedHat is saying to its customers "You can keep using our product without worry: We'll be right over to replace any part of your RedHat Linux solution which SCO can convince a judge they own."

    RedHat has it right. They know SCO can't sue an end user for breach of contract if SCO doesn't have a contract with the end user.

    --
    A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
  6. RH has always been careful about IP by ivanmarsh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's why they removed fortune cookie and mp3 support from their distro.