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.

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."
...

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

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