EV1 Servers CEO Responds To Customers

Retalin writes "EV1 CEO Robert Marsh gave his customer base a written explanation for the purchase of his decision to purchase a SCO License late last night. The most interesting quote was this: "It has been argued by a Linux Journal reporter that I have essentially called the various GPL Linux developers plaugerists. This is false as I would never make such a claim against them. They are some of the brightest minds for whom I hold a great deal of respect.""

Comments

Full Text

[CuriousGeorge113]

After Yesterdays /.'ing of their forums, here's the full text of the commnet before the whole thing bork's out

Additional Headsurfer Comments Regarding SCO Contract

By now, many of you have heard of oru agreement with SCO. What you have probably heard, though, is misinformation about the arrangement.

We license Linux through Red Hat. They provide our distribution and support/updates for the Enterprise distribution. Plus, they do an awesome job at delivering. Their support and dedication is second to none. Our agreement with SCO is in no way any kind of indictment on Red Hat.

We did not license a linux distribution or any software covered by a referenced EULA from SCO. We did, however, license certain IP from SCO.

We fullly support the GPL and the open source movement.

It has been argued by a Linux Journal reporter that I have essentially called the various GPL Linux developers plaugerists. This is false as I would never make such a claim against them. They are some of the brightest minds for whom I hold a great deal of respect.

Other have claimed that we're essentially funding SCOs various lawsuits. This is not true. SCO already has like $60 million on hand and our small fee would not go very far defending an action such as this, much less prosecuting one.

We make no endorsement of SCO nor do we make any admission as to their claims.

HOWEVER, what we did do was make a prudent business decision based upon our circumstances and our customers needs and the need to bring certainty to their businesses.

Whatever your position on the various suits, which SCO has said will increase. These suits have a very real and significant cost, even if proven unsuccessful. These are costs we were prepared to bear as we did in the Free Speech case with CI Host. the vast majority of smaller hosts using our services do not have our resources to defend/prosecute such an action. While our decision may not be popular, it does ensure that our customers (to the extent that they operate servers in our data centers) are protected from action by SCO with respect to those servers.

No legal action is certain. The outcome of every legal action is subject to risk. (Just look at the OJ Simpson case .. who would have figured that one) There is significcant risk on both sides of this equation.

In every step building the EV1 business, I've had to make decisions that I believed in my heart were in the best interests of my clients and my shareholders. My team and I have worked to bring the best possible service at the best possible price to our customers. In this case, the same decision making tools were employed and only after significant thought and analysis, an action taken.

As a result of this action, our customers can be assured that as these cases work their way through the legal system, that thay have no worry that SCO will take action against them for servers in our data centers.

I do appreciate the positive comments and emails that many of you have sent as I also understand the negative positions that others have taken. We are fortunate to live in a country where it is possible to speak your mind freely.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer

DC2 Opens on Wednesday with limited server availability. Initial deployments are likely to be dual drive/1 GB configurations. Additional configurations will follow as time and space allow.

Re:Full Text

[parliboy]

Regrettibly, I find myself and my people in the crosshairs of your anger (no criticism on the .asp, please -- it's not my site build.)

Will it influence what we do in future decisions, if we need to expand our server ops? Yes. Will we pick up tomorrow and move on? No. We have dozens of websites (not a lot, but given who they are, we have some measure of pride) who are in the middle of the most important periods of their calendar year. It would be suicidal to say to them, "Hi, you may see some issues over the next couple of days as we change providers; sorry if this impacts you right in the middle of your online conference registration and your members can't access your site."

Also, don't suggest we figure take the extra time to make the transition smooth for our clients -- many of us are still students ourselves; I'm in my last semster of an education degree and typing this from the "big honkin' desk" at my student teaching post right now. I barely have time to keep my shoes tied -- hell, I switched back to velcro just to be safe!

For those who have the resources, be it in time, manpower, or money, to leave EV1 on your timetable, good for them. For the rest of us, please show some patience. Not everyone who is staying is happy about this, but unless you're volunteering your personal time to help out EV1 clients who want to leave, what you're asking is unfair and unreasonable.

Re:Full Text

[EzInKy]

On the face of it, some of his arguments make sense.

I wonder though if he knows that so far SCO has only sued people with whom they have done business? Mr. Marsh have been better off if he consulted with some of SCOG's previous partners and customers before he made such a rash decision.

Re:Eh

[root-kun]

Rackshack/EV1 is notably one of the worst companies out there. They heavily oversell their bandwidth producing very low quality network solutions, they have awful tech support, misleading staff. This is just another nail in their coffin. Boycott rackshack/ev1 and their anti-opensource and their shotty business traffics. I'm sorry guys but you cant sell terabits of aggregate bandwidth when you only have gigabits, no wonder half your routes are SLOW AS FUCK.

K&P

[Burb]

There's always The Elements of Programming Style by Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger ...

NetCraft story (including /. reference)

[glassesmonkey]

EV1Servers Pays License Fee to SCO

...
By paying a licensing fee to insulate itself against SCO's legal claims, EV1Servers drew immediate fire from many corners of the Linux community, with some Slashdot readers suggesting a boycott of the company. EV1Servers is one of the largest dedicated hosting companies, with more than 11,000 Linux servers visible on the Web, according to our most recent survey.

"We realize we may be vilified by some diehards within the industry, but we feel a real obligation to take care of our customers," Marsh said in an interview this afternoon. "We had private discussions about this issue with some of our customers, and they were quite concerned about the uncertainty and the potential for a legal quagmire. What we've done is ensure that it's not an issue for our customers."
...

11,000 linux servers

[Anonymous Coward]

check on netcraft
(so 55%)

Did he read the license?

[dtfinch]

The restrictive wording of SCO's license makes it almost impossible to not violate it. Plus SCO can terminate the license at any time without cause and in the license they agree to stop using Linux in that case, regardless of the outcome of SCO's lawsuits. Just about the only way for an end user to subject themselves to litigation from SCO is to buy their license.

Grammar?

[aisnh]

I don't know about any of you, but it would take a large amount of convincing to buy any of this company's services, let alone invest in them. This man, supposedly the CEO of a (reasonably) profitable business repeatedly makes errors in grammar and spelling throughout a letter to his customers.

• "We did not license a linux distribution..."
• "...various GPL Linux developers plaugerists..." (What are those? People who transmit the plague?)
• "SCO already has like $60 million on hand..." (Like, oh-my-god! That's like sooo much money!)
• "Whatever your position on the various suits, which SCO has said will increase." (This is not even a sentence.)
• "There is significcant risk"

That is by no means an exhaustive list. The letter is riddled with unprofessional colloquialisms and poorly-constructed sentences. Even the parent company name (EV1) is formally listed as "Everyones Internet." Missing an apostrophe, Bob? -Aaron

Re:Grammar?

[Skapare]

Add this:

To him, the cost of terminating a customer that is spamming at an extreme level is outweighed by the cost of being blocked due to that spamming continuing.

He certainly does seem to be one of those people who thinks in pure business terms, and never about doing things right. Maybe that's why my servers were under a 6 weeks long spam attack from their network, while all attempts to contact them by email and telephone never got past the idiots he hires to field (deflect) the calls.

To him, the cost of all that spam causing a huge spike in my mail server load stats is nothing compared to the cost of losing a paying customer, because he doesn't have to deal with the end result of the spam.

So now maybe you can understand why I have the entire EV1 network blocked from access to my mail servers. You would do well to find a different place for hosting.

Re:Don't kick me but....

[Snowmit]

Wouldn't a cheaper solution than buying the licenses have been so switch from linux to freebsd? With the cost of those licenses being so high. Then no fear of law suit. This seems like it could be the more cost effective solution.


TCO (Total cost of Ownership). While BSD itself might be free, the cost to the company in terms of installing and configuring the new system, training staff on it, providing customers with support for it (and for the inevitable errors that happen during the install and set-up phase) and generally bringing everyone involved up to a level of expertise comparable to the one that they have now with Linux would probably cost more than buying off SCO.

Re:There's a reason you're not a lawyer...

[njcoder]

The RIAA is already being sued by one parent citing RICO statutes.

Re:There's a reason you're not a lawyer...

[Fnkmaster]

The more you beat your chest about it, the more you make yourself look like a troll. Maybe there's a RICO case, maybe there isn't - at least some people think there is a legitimate RICO case against the RIAA. Around here, we value discussion and argument. Frankly, as silly as it sounds and as much as we may self-efface regularly on Slashdot, knock the sliding standards of this community, the trolling, the karma-whoring and so on, many ideas that have been proposed or supported on Slashdot over the years have turned out to have legs. Some have turned into successful products and Open Source projects. And certainly successful memes and social phenomena have sprung out of individuals on Slashdot.

So I figure, if somebody wants to throw out the idea that there is a RICO violation involved in using misleading contracts and false legal claims and press statements as part of a systematic attempt to threaten and bully money out of admittedly naive companies, then dammit, either explain why he's wrong and give him a thwack upside the head or constructively contribute to the discussion. DON'T spew out sentences in all caps reiterating your argument without any evidence of your own to back up your point, you'll just get yourself ripped a new asshole.

Stupidity should be painful

[Weaselmancer]

I can see where this is coming from, but isn't it just a tad extreme? Boycotting SCO is one thing. Boycotting EV1 because they paid their protection money is another.

Nope, it's not extreme at all. Just one single user buying one of their stupid licenses gives them a note of validity. A precedent.

And, that money goes to SCO, who will use it to hurt other people with and continue their nonsense. I don't buy music CDs for the same reason, because of the RIAA. I make sure my money does not support people who wish to abuse me, curtail my rights, or harm the world if I can help it.

A good example of this would be spam. It's the one idiot in a gazillion that buys the Gene-ric Vi'ag'ra that makes spam profitable, and therefore keeps spam around. And EV1 just became that idiot for the entire Linux community.

So to sum up, stupidity should be painful. Boycott them.

Weaselmancer

Re:It's a big deal for other reasons too

[sweetooth]

Thier principles are that they don't care what you do with your server for the most part. They are more of a common carrier than anything else, and if they did block adult webmasters or hamas members they would simply be impinging on someones free speech. The only time they appear to cut off accounts is when the AUP is broken, the bill isn't paid, or law enforcment asks them to hand over a box that may have been used in a crime. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. Just like the telephone company providing phone service. They provide it for homes, businesses etc without discrimination based on the type of business.

I already block EV1 due to spamming

[Skapare]

I already block EV1 due to spamming. Back in March 2003, my servers were hit with a huge repeated spam attack coming from several addresses in an EV1 address range. It wasn't so huge as to bring down the servers, and they did keep running. But it played hell with my statistical and performance measurements. In terms of incoming email delivery attempts, it was a huge spike on the graph. And despite attempts to communicate with them to get them to stop this, sent my email and made by telephone, I was never able to get the word to any responsible person. A week into the situation it was still going on and I had heard nothing from several emails sent to their abuse address. So I called by telephone and spoke to idiots who refused to even pass on a message, much less get someone responsible on the phone. All he suggested was to send more email to an address that was obviously not being read by anyone capable of stopping the attack. This went on for 6 weeks.

So is it any wonder why I am blocking all of these EV1 address ranges from my mail server:

• 64.246.0.0/18
• 66.98.128.0/17
• 207.44.128.0/17
• 207.218.192.0/18
• 216.12.192.0/19
• 216.40.192.0/18
• 216.88.76.0/23
• 216.127.64.0/19

Note that it isn't because of the spam attack that these are blocked; it's because of the irresponsible way that EV1 is managed that these are blocked.

Had EV1 been sued by SCO, and fought the suit, that would have been reason enough for me to completely wipe out that spam attack incident and remove these blocks. Had Head Surfer even so much as simply announced a refusal to pay extortion money to SCO, and donated it instead to the defense fund, that would also have been reason enough for me to completely wipe out that spam attack incident and remove these blocks. But instead, SCO has not only been helped, but this practice of legalized extortion has been further encouraged. That's reason enough for me to lock these addresses in place.

Re:What are the alternatives?

[Reziac]

I can't help wrt stuff like managed servers, or options beyond what's listed in their hosting packages, but when 1and1.com offered their smallest package for 3 years free as a promo, I took it under the "what the hell" theory. And within a month, I'd already about decided that if this was typical, I'd be keeping the account when the freebie runs out, and have been sending clients there as well. ($5/mo.: 500mb space, 5GB/mo. xfer allotment, 50 mailboxes, various other perks incl. full version of NOF7. Goes up from there.)

One reason being that live humans answer support emails, with relevant answers to issues or questions, not scripted bullshit.

We'll see what I think of it in 3 years, but if nothing changes, I'll be staying.

opensource support

[MrWhitefolkz]

For those who do not know ev1servers.net (used to be rackshack.net) is also a contributor to many OS projects. Some examples: virtualmin: Robert Marsh donated $400 http://www.swelltech.com/virtualmin/ php.net: They provide the servers and bandwidth for php.net http://www.php.net/thanks.php Ev1 servers sponsor smaller projects. I assume others; I am not going to spend all day looking to see what projects they do sponsor :). My point is not to defend them. It has to make people realize that ev1servers and Robert marsh probably are not as anti-open source as everyone is making them out to be.

Re:Well..

[justins]

Civil disobedience is not a good business model.

Defying SCO is not "civil disobedience." Civil disobedience refers to breaking a governmental law or policy for a political end. Often the end is having the law changed.

Defying SCO is a matter of simple contract law, and it would not be meant to serve a political end.

Consider this, though: They care enough about their customers and their own business that they're willing to take this "voluntary" hit of over a million bucks just to protect themselves and their customers. Even if SCO isn't right (preaching to the choir, I know) then they've still made a major step in the direction of "we'd take a bullet for you."

Since the customers will ultimately pay for the SCO agreement, and since the customers would never have been liable to SCO in the first place (EV1 owns the servers, not the end user), this can't possibly be true.

something obvious got missed

[alizard]

They're claiming 400K customers?

I'd say the great majority don't need anything remotely close to what EV1 is selling. I've been poking over EV1's site, and I'm not remotely interested in buying. Does anybody really believe that there are 400,000 people that need 700G/month BW? I know I don't.

Unless one is a major publication (or mid-sized pr0n provider) or serving up primarily multimedia content or expects to be slashdotted every other day, who the hell needs 700G bandwidth per month? If you're a user, are you burning even 1Gbyte a month in BW?

My guess is that most of their users would be better off switching to another provider for a level of service more appropriate to actual usage. 2000 megs and 100 megs of storage space is perfectly adequate for the average individual or small business. That's like $10/month or less. Intelligent shopping will find you plenty of shops selling virtual domains running on *nix boxes.

$100/month is low-end colo if you shop around.

Is ev's service that good to be worth $99/month?

If you're an ev1 user, figure out what your bandwidth usage really is. If it's under 2G/month, there's no particular reason for you to be spending more than $10/month. Start your new account almost anywhere and change your nameservers and run content in parallel until you know your new site has propagated through all the nameservers. Replacing a typical individual or small business website that isn't getting heavy traffic is not a big deal. A colo is a much bigger deal, but do you know a cheaper way to buy BW?

If you're buying (or reselling) several hundred EV1 sites, you probably should be thinking of running your own box anyway.

(IANAL DISCLAIMER) Their purchase of a SCO license appears much more likely to expose you to legal action than protect you from it. Are the suggestions elsewhere in the discussion about blacklisting due to pr0n spam and Microsoft promotions making you wonder if what you are buying is really worth $99/month? Do you want to depend on this kind of professional judgement to present your business to the world?

Once you know traffic is going to the new site,you can tell ev1's owner "blow it out your ass" without the least bit of concern about service impract.