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Insuring Linux, Thanks to SCO
jtheory writes "There's an interesting article on Salon.com (free daypass available, ads, etc.) about the counter-reaction to SCO's attacks on Linux, and how SCO may actually be one of the best things to happen to Linux lately, because their attacks have turned a lot of attention to the possible Achilles' heel in the code contribution process. Includes some good detail on OSRM, a company offering insurance against lawsuits like SCO's, who notably hired Bruce Perens and PJ of Groklaw fame, and is doing their own extremely thorough analysis of the code and any possibility of improperly included code. The founder of OSRM also wrote a story called Why the Linux Community Needs Open Source Insurance on LinuxWorld." We've mentioned risk insurance before.
You can replace it for free???
I thought Windows insurance was switching to Linux.
What's Linux insurance--switching to Mac OS X?
Thanks, Google!.
Seriously, folks.
Now we have insurance agents peddling their wares on Slashfdot?
A sort of "malpractice" insurance, where instead of a doctor's malpractice, it's that of the code-plagiarizer?
;) )
Or is it for protecting the Linux distributer that was unaware of said plagiarism.
(By the way, I'm not saying Linux contains plagiarized code
That CSS file that blocks ads
> Achilles' heel
What - the heel belonging to more than one Achilles?
I for one welocme our new State Farm Overlords!
how is that actually good for Linux. Isn't take a bit like pointing out all the security holes in windows it doesn't improve the OS's reputation. and from most of what i remember about SCO's attacks on code contribution have been shown to be wide of the mark
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Uh... isnt this a little like somebody in a straw house thanking arsonist for burning other people's houses down just to prove they're flammable?
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Heh. I can't even flamebait SCO anymore. Every bad thing that you could say about the organization has already been said.
One more cost to be added into 'independent' TCO studies funded by microsoft.
I don't get OSRM at all to be honest. Is it just a ploy by PJ/Groklaw and Perens to grab some cash???
HP was the first back in September to indemnify its customers, then IBM, Red Hat and others followed. Big companies may feel they need it and good for them.
The GPL license itself does offer any software warrantees and it never should and never will. Those of us that know and use the the stuff on a daily basis know the real deal.
internetnews.com had an article titled, "What do if SCO comes knocking" a few weeks back that was real interesting too...
Just let them try to sue me. They can have my linux servers when they pry them out of my cold, air-conditioned data center.
There needs to be much more detailed work on the legal side of things before Open Source becomes the norm.
Actually your correct oh well. Im going to turn this into a compitition the best "original" flame will win a negative amount of Karma
- We have an Strong and Clear in terms license.
- We have the code available.
- We have Lawyers all arround de world willing to defend GNU.
- Most developers have allways taken care of not violating copyrigth, and including only their code on the work they do
We have an implicit honor system, and it works. If someone do something wrong, we could listen the complain, isolate the coders and code compromissed, replace it with GPLd code, and apologies to the company the code has been stolen from.
All this SCO thing is just flamebait; don't pay more atention to them, and don't let them change the way this has allways been.
Wouldn't it be better to have a delete option for garbage posts like these? I wonder how many megabytes (gigs?) of data would be freed. And how much faster the searches of the archival history would run.
1. Start from a normal viewpoint
2. Find arguments supporting its opposite
3. Publish an article about the opposite viewpoint
4. ?
5. Profit
their attacks have turned a lot of attention to the possible Achilles' heel...
With Windows, when someone points out a possible Achilles' heel, people exploit it (with viruses, etc). Is it good to point out potential problems? Yes if 1) They can be fixed or 2) They aren't problems. It will make the beast stronger. However, if the issue, in this case code contribution, which is THE blood of OSS, is actually a problem and can't be fixed, then this whole OSS thing might take a deathblow. If that is the case, I'd rather people not focus on it.
In the end we have to trust people that submit code. Short of checking it against a database of known code (which doesn't help if they stole code from a proprietary source), there isn't too much we can do.
While I tend to agree with "there is no such thing as bad press," if the press kills OSS or Linux (which, in this case, I bet it won't), I'd rather SCO not have started anything. And if other people start to try to exploit OSS because of the possible Achilles' heel (with law suits, bills passed to limit OSS), we'll end up with tons of irritating front page posts on slashdot. We might even have to have a sub-catagory for the it so we can have user filters.
What if someone forks it?
FireBird Insurance?
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
I'm no insurance salesman, but this doesn't sound very practical.
I mean, how much does the average lawsuit cost? Like a million dollars?
$1,000 X $1,000 == $30,000 worth of insurance.
Might as well buy MS if you're gonna pay that.
Jay | http://oldos.org
... for my Windows servers. My last co. almost got burned by MS's code theft issues in SQL Server.
Of course, the premiums would be a stone bitch...
-----------
Love your country always, but respect your government only when it deserves it. -- Mark Twain
"SCO may actually be one of the best things to happen to Linux lately"
"company offering insurance against lawsuits like SCO's, who notably hired Bruce Perens and PJ of Groklaw fame"
Is it really "one of the best things" for Linux, or for lawyers? I didn't need to buy any "Linux insurance" before that SCO farce. Why should I be grateful?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
In my head, insurance agents who are capitalizing on this FUD are on par with amublance chasers sitting in the ER waiting room. Maybe that's a little harsh though towards the ambulance chasers, because at least they are around potential clients.
Offering this kind of insurance only perpetuates the FUD that Linux/OSS/FS/etc are not safe. Maybe if they offered this as general purpose software insurance, rather than targetting open source, I'd be more understanding. But offering it only for open source software essentially sends the message that IP infringement is common in open source software, but never happens in proprietary.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Publicity is publicity, no matter the form. Thanks SCO! If linux wasn't a household name before..
Install Ninnle Linux on all your systems, and you'll never have to worry about system crashes or security or configuration or just about anything else. It's that stable, that reliable, so no need for any other sort of "insurance" will ever be needed. Come under the Ninnle blanket!
This is an extreme example of economic reasoning at its best.... let's hope that the company selling the insurance is not related to SCO!!!
As long as you aren't stealing code for your open-source projects, you're fine. Someone like SCO can litigate till they're blue in the face, but as long as you didn't do anything wrong, you'll be fine. They can have all the billions of dollars they want, but money doesn't create evidence. If you need to get your court costs back, countersue.
..but I'm sure most people here are smart enough to realize this (I hope). The last thing we need is fucking "code insurance".
It's a shame that these people try to peddle their bullshit off other people's fears. You DON'T need this!!
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
Hmmm... so you can insure yourself against the perils of using Open Source (like getting sued by SCO).
What I want is a Slashdot Karma Insurance.
(In fact I could use one right away now, since this gonna end up (-1, Offtopic) ^^; )
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Just look what insurance has done to health care. The _last_ thing we need as a society is another aspect of our lives that is deemed neccesary to insure. On the whole, I beleive that insurance companies are some of the most exploitive organizations around, draining resources from society with very little positive return. At best, this is going to convince people to throw money away, at worst it is going to encourage frivolous lawsuits because the odds of payoff become higher, thereby making "OSS Insurance" a de facto requirement for running OSS and taking away one of its largest strengths.
Honestly, I'm amazed that more people don't view a company running around yelling, "Linux insurance! Protect yourself from the risks of Linux!" at least somewhat negatively.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Can't mod you up, but I can show my support by commenting.
It's bad enough that they're creating a new "business" from mental fluff, we shouldn't have to read about it here.
Come on, do any developers actually think this is a good idea? No? Well then.
Slashdot: Promoting the worthless fluff of lawyers and marketing.
(no, this isn't "ignoring the problem". There is no problem. The perception of a problem isn't worth arguing about. The perception belongs to people WHO DO NOT MATTER.)
I dunno. In a perfect world, there shouldn't be a need for this kind of thing. But since we don't live in that world, this might have practical value.
My take on this is - it's a good thing if you are paranoid or a potential target. I don't understand why Linux end users are different from Windows end users in a liability sense - can someone point me to a good explanation of why my buying a Windows license suddenly frees me from potential legal trouble, whereas the GNU GPL somehow doesn't? Why isn't the author responsible in both cases? (Not a rhetorical question - I really would like an answer.)
Anyway, I'm not sure this lawsuit insurance is a bad idea no matter WHAT you do or what you use. Lawsuits are used like clubs against business opponents nowadays, and merit or justification isn't even of interest anymore. Perhaps an insurance setup where the insurance covers the costs of a defense up to $$$, but not the consequences of a guilty verdict, would be a good way for a lot of small companies to go. If they aren't doing anything wrong, and get their ass sued by $LARGE_COMPETITOR in order to put them out of business, the lawsuit coverage would let them put up enough of a fight to make trouble for $LARGE_COMPETITOR. If $LARGE_COMPETITOR had to do this for all the smaller competitive businesses they would go up against, it might start to be rather useless for them to try such methods.
Remember, lawsuit insurance in this scenario isn't about the merits of the case - it's about being able to resist bullying attempts by litigious bastards. If you have a good case, this would allow you to fight it, but wouldn't let scum insure their way out of the financial consequences of doing something illegal. In THAT capacity, I can see this being a good idea. And not just for open source software either.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Slayer 0wnz
It eliminates the weak and forces the rest to get stronger.
SCO and Microsoft (and Sun) are predators as far as the OSS community is concerned, and although they will cause much suffering and trauma, the result will be stronger and more successful OSS firms.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
OSRM, a company offering insurance against lawsuits like SCO
Cool.
Now, instead of paying juggernauts for their expensive software, you can pay expensive insurers to use free software!
What would america be without lawyers?
This "Linux Insurance" by OSRM is really bad for Linux. As noble as the creators may think it is, the fact that it exists at all shows that SCO has been (somewhat) successful in their campaign to cast uncertainty on the legitimacy of Linux and its code base.
For example, let's say that I want to sell my boss on buying a bunch of Linux servers instead of Windows or Solaris servers. I tell him all the great advantages of Linux - stability, performance, low cost, etc. Then some Windows schmuck interrupts and says that Linux has legal problems. I say "no it doesn't" and explain how the SCO fiaSCO is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. Then I go to explain that their is insurance that you can buy in case anyone (SCO or anyone else) tries to sue you.
After this my boss gets scared and thinks that there is legitimate risk involved with going to Linux. Then he thinks, "Why go with Linux and spend extra $$$ on insurance when I can just go with Windows or something else."
This whole insurance thing is just bad. It helps SCO to prove their point (that there is a problem with the Linux development process), makes Linux cost more than it should, and introduces the idea that risk is involved when using Linux.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
I'm assuming by _Linux_ you are referring specifically to the kernel. Where your scenario fails to hold water is the fact that Linus and crew actually do check the code that gets submitted for the kernel. I don't see a johnny-come-lately with miracle code that works flawlessly on the first try getting something past them. In real life, YMMV
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
http://superultra3.uk2net.com/~lexusownersclub_org /forum/viewtopic.php?p=2126#2126
anonymous to avoid the karma whoring allegations ;)
We've all known that lawyers (SCO, etc.) and insurance ppl are the old skool parasites/bloodsuckers (excluding gold digging spouses and politicians, etc.), but from the looks of it, there are bloodsuckers of bloodsuckers (insurers against SCO).
There SERIOUSLY needs to be a major reform of the courts to reduce frivolous lawsuits and thusly reduce insurance rates (good for work-comp rates in california too). Maybe REALLY steep fines for those filing frivolous lawsuits or lawsuits with the express intent to get a settlement, just like how some lawsuits have a ludacrisly high penalty payouts (think "tobacco" lawsuits).
Slashdot search already gives an option to avoid low-scored posts. If speed is important, it seems better to replace the gruesome twosome of Perl and MySQL with something more robust. May I suggest Asp.net and MS SQL Server?
Let the lawyers know that a juicy insurance settlement awaits their efforts. That will keep them off your back.
I also hear decaying bits of tuna make good shark repellant.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
Because MS can pay John Doe to contribute code from the leaked win2k source into linux and then sue every distributor of linux out of existance for copyright infringement.
That's one of the interesting things about this company -- they are actively working to prevent this. They're hiring people like PJ and doing plenty of their own research to catch John Doe before he can do any damage.
They have a massive (and growing) database of source code from free and non-free software that they can compare against newly submitted code.
All of this work takes money, of course... which is where the payments from the people they insure come in. Pretty simply business model, really -- we all want someone to do all that legwork to make sure the code is beyond reproach, but none of us individually can do it -- so they sell the service (and indemnification!) to everyone. If they do their job checking the source, they'll never have to pay out.
Seem like a win-win to me, if it works. They'll run into problems if not enough people think it's a danger.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
The Shadow knows.
Note that the benchmark was heavily slanted to favour Microsoft, but the Linux community wanted to win even in that instance.
http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.php3
http://www.google.com/search?q=mindcraft+weiner
Xenu loves you!
The good thing about this company is that they're putting a lot of work and research into checking source contributions to make sure they're clean. Now they just need a business model.
The insurance thing could work, if maybe they didn't call it "insurance". Or maybe we can just get IBM and some of the other big guys coming on board to Linux to just fund them outright... and THESE guys can offer indemnification to their customers.
Then everybody benefits from the better processes, there's no black cloud of "...so Linux needs to be INSURED?", and Novell, IBM, etc. benefit because they can tout the indemnification to their customers.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
advert free mirror - bypass the crappy flash ads
Seriously, why wasn't this modded double-plus ungood Flamebait Troll?
The people running Microsoft are many things, but STUPID is not one of them.
Also, they seem to know the difference between playing hardball to crush the competition vs. a blatantly illegal act, which is more than I can say for the parent's poster.
Insuring Linux, Thanks to SCO
In other news...
Insuring Cars, Thanks to Thieves
"There's an interesting article about the counter-reaction to thieves' attacks on cars, and how thieves may actually be one of the best things to happen to cars lately, because their attacks have turned a lot of attention to the possible Achilles' heel in the car locking process. Includes some good detail on a company offering insurance against thefts. This is a great news for every car owner."
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Great, now I've got the Crimson Permanent Assurance song playing in my head...
It's building confidence in Linux. We look great, SCO looks like a bunch of jerks and bullies, possibly supported by Microsoft. It's showing that Linux is strong in the face of a full frontal assault, that it's not just a loose conglomerate of whimsical hackers, who'll just drop it when the going gets tough. It's commiting IBM and various other companies to the defense and support of Linux. It's providing a template and an example for future cases. After an initial wavering of faith in Linux, I'm sure we'll see a surge.
Hell, as long as the US Justice System doesn't drop the ball, the whole SCO issue is great for linux!
You call this a SCO story?
gone are those days! we used to have a REAL SCO story every day back then...
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
SCO claims that Linux is actually an illegal derivative of the Unix operating system, which SCO says it owns. In a lawsuit filed on March 3, SCO accused DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler's corporate parent, of violating the terms of a Unix license Chrysler signed in the 1980s -- the violation, SCO suggested, stemmed from Chrysler's adoption of Linux in place of Unix.
Seems to be pretty clearly laying out the idea of SCO suing DC over a previous Unix license signed with SCO. Doesn't give much details, but the author isn't claiming SCO sued DC solely because they were using linux. OTOH, the AutoZone part doesn't give many details on why SCO is suing; seems like lazy journalism rather than bad homework.I also agree that quote from Egger is really misleading; it's misleading because Egger is spinning the matter to make it look more egregious than it really is. I suppose the article writer should have pointed it out, but again I think it's a case of lazy write-up rather than bad research.
... of New York in your joke and also mentioned something about having proof of receipt for paying your LAN tax too.
I have more faith in an AK-47 to protect from some SCO bastard suits than any OSS opportunists who wish to profit and suck dry our movement!
No. That is not the point. SCO is the risk. They are part of the problem, not the solution. See: Insuring Cars, Thanks to Thieves. Do the car thieves demonstrate that the risk exists and without them we wouldn't know that we need car insurance? No. Not at all. Without thieves we would in fact not need said insurance. That is the point. Analogously, without such God damned immoral bastards like Darl McBride we would not need any "Linux insurance." And that is the most important point.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Nothing is different.
I don't understand why Linux end users are different from Windows end users in a liability sense
If MS provides code to you in violation of copyright, it isn't any different than if Redhat did.
The only problem is that since there is no code to lock at and it is all a big secret, people assume that closed source companies own all of it. (And they definately don't, there are huge amounts of licenced code in there)
Do you really think that SCO will have any money left to pay the costs of IBM, Redhat, the people that tried for injunctions, those losing business due to the public statements of SCO.
They don't have enough money NOW to cover this damage, what makes you think they'd pay for it later?
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/11/06/058249.shtml ?tid=106&tid=185
So you think its a bad idea to look through the code then?
It might be dull, but what I am saying is if they are doing it, they might see something, which would be nice.If they dont, then this is nice too, because its less likely to be there.
Please explain how this is Trolling.
"Thats right buddy, the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away."
They even give "Achilles' heel" as an example, and say it's correct, though it's often simply avoided.
Part of the license for SCO Unix says that they may demand such a certification of compliance.
No the contract states that they can request compliance to the license agreement.
Companies like DC do not know, and can not confirm that there is or is not SCO code in Linux, therefore they can not certify such a thing.
This is just as ridiculous as asking them to certify there is no SCO code in MS windows, they just can't confirm it either way.
What if I owned patents that I knew I could prove MS violated...
What if I sued every MS end user...
Saying "the heel of Achilles" sounds stupid, doesn't it? So we go with "Achilles' heel." You'll be all right.
On the contrary Let's hope they are related as that would be irrefutable proof of attempted extortion and subject to criminal RICO charges.
Help fight continental drift.
Also, the Delaware court ruled, in putting the Red Hat vs. SCO suit on hold, that the Utah court was deciding the copyright issue. Based on that precedent, copyright-related suits can be expected to go on hold until IBM vs SCO is decided. So SCO is a long way from being able to enforce copyright claims against anybody. They'd have to beat IBM, then Novell, then Red Hat. Only then would Linux users have anything to worry about.
The market has picked up on this. SCO tried a stock buyback scheme to boost the the price of their stock. That worked for only a week, and bumped the price up from 9 to 11 or so. It's back to single digits today, at 9.09 today and dropping. It was 16 back in February, and 3 a year ago, before all the lawsuits.
Win2K source code will never get into Linux, since it won't pass Marcelo/Andy/Linus's quality assurance standards!
Isn't that...I dunno...redundant? Seems weird. Reaction is by definition a response to something.
I believe the outcome of the SCO suit is likely to put most of this to rest.
But if that is settled (in the favor of the open-source side) and similar suits continue to appear, we have a problem - and may need to retaliate in order to fix it.
The problem is that, even with insurance, the threat of suits increases the cost of using Open Source - even when the code itself is free. Either you buy insurance (possibly for as much as the shelf price of a competitive product) or you risk even more if you're sued.
Assuming the victims of the frivolous suits can't recover more than their own costs, we're left in the position of free software becoming more expensive than proprietary.
I wonder if, should that scenario develop, one could similarly raise the price of proprietary software by similarly going after customers when a closed-source product is found to contain purloined open-source code?
Probably a bad idea, morally and/or tactically. But I'd like to hear others' thoughts on it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...otherwise it will backfire completely. If the insurer settles claims instead of litigating them, it will open the floodgates for every "IP" owner under the sun to sue a user of open source products.
In reality, copyright violations and stolen code are far more likely in closed-source. This is for the simple and obvious reason that it is a lot easier to hide the fact that you did it because far fewer people see it. I'm not talking about a company willingly stealing code, I am talking about the individual developers and contractors working for that company who are quite willing to steal and cheat to get their job done and hope the boss does not notice. OSS contributors cannot do this because they know the code will be looked at by thousands of people, at least half of who do not have an interest in using the code and may actively want to find a reason to reject your code (ie because they have their own competing contribution). Compare this to a company where at most a few dozen people look at the contributed code and all of them are interested in having the project done.
I found a headline on the Financial Times where it said that Baystar capital allege SCO has breached their contract for their investment. But there were no details. Has anyone seen the full story?
Wow, this comment has taken my karma from "Positive" to "Bad" in one day. Please, no more Funny moderation! Every time someone bumps me up to 5, I get Overrated back down to 4, and since Overrated brings karma down but Funny doesn't affect karma, the net effect is a +4 or +5 post has brought me down to the AC posting level. Granted, I don't think I'm that funny, but wtf? This is really a -3 Funny. Just don't moderate me up in the first place!
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
But why would they want to expend them on something with such a HUGE and totally unpredictable risk.
Don't know, why would anyone insure the HUGE and unpredictable risks of .. Outlook, IE, IIS, ... ? (come to think of it, not certain anyone does)
Parent should be modded insightful!
Upto the total retail value of your M$ software. That won't help much in a patent lawsuit I'm afraid, fuckwad!
The SCO attacks against Linux IP are very much akin to the attacks a system sees when sitting on an unfiltered network. They each have the effect of exposing areas of vulnerability, and generating fixes. Sure, there are some casualties on the way, but it's a productive process. ("That which does not kill us...")
I don't have the time to flesh out the idea properly, but I expect y'all get my drift.
If not, here's a comparison sure to annoy several people: The FSF is to free *nix legal issues what OpenBSD.org is to free *nix security issues.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
The idea of insurance for open source liability strikes me as a very bad idea:
1) It attaches a fee to what was once free.
2) It makes companies carrying insurance more likely to pass deep pockets analysis and be sued.
3) Insurers like to settle. The result is precident. And any precident that says Open Source is tainted is very bad.
4) The mere availability of insurance speeks volumes to the confidence the market has in the product.
-- $G
They do NOT have access to all the millions of lines of proprietary code out there.
There is no way for them to tell whether some code was stolen or not.
The best thing anyone can do is to keep doing exactly what they have done before. Write the code. Document who submitted it and when and who submitted patches for it and when and so forth.
All I see here is a lawyer trying to make money off of Linux.
A. Either no will will ever be successfully sued, in which case you've wasted your money...
-or-
B. Violations will be found and EVERYONE will be sued and the insurance company will go broke paying all the claims.
Now, think about which (A or B) the lawyer will WANT to be on and then think about paying for any "insurance".
I hope it's just Egger looking for some income and hiring PJ and Perens to do "work" as an excuse to exploit their name-recognition.
You see OSRM, you see PJ mentioned. Yet she is not the lawyer and not the driving force behind this and not fronting the cash. She does RESEARCH. She's a PARA-LEGAL.
She isn't an insurance genius.
She isn't a hot-shot lawyer.
She isn't massively wealthy.
But she always gets mentioned. To me, that means someone is trying to trade on her name. I hope it is Egger and not PJ herself.
So then does the linux insurance indenify you up to the retail value (less than zero) of linux, fuckwad?
Pretty simple solution, FreeBSD. Or OpenBSD if your paranoid and don't mind sacrificing IO performance for audits. Or NetBSD if your running on some sorta reject box that probably shouldn't be running BSD and should be running the native OS for that hardware platform.
But no, everyone is gaga over Linux. Meanwhile, BSD systems and users sit in the background humming along, under the scope of the media radar.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Insurance is competitive. The companies have to look at all kinds of information to determine the lowest price they can charge while still earning enough to pay claims. With fire and such, a lot of the data is statistical. They can look at the statistics of how many homes burned in an area and how much the settlement was for.
The same with auto insurance. They look at your driving record and compare your stats with others in that area.
This "insurance" doesn't fit the standard model. What is the likelyhood of a distribution being sued?
We can tell how many homes per 1,000 will catch fire for any area. But no distributions have ever been sued before. We don't know the likelyhood OR the settlement history. So how can they determine the premiums (the money you pay to be insured)?
You have to take in enough money to pay the claims (plus paying the people working for you). If you don't know how big the claims will be, how can you know how much to charge?
I do think that Groklaw is cool, and some of the people that post there are some very experienced programmers - I have learned quite a few things from reading the posts over there. It is a very, very valuable source of information, if you can weed through the garbage (every site like that, including /. has garbage (no offense meant))- so I have a lot of respect for Groklaw, but there is one disturbing trend that bothers me; it goes like this. It starts when a self-proclaimed IP holder, or an analyst, or a reporter says something absurd or uninformed or uneducated or something in bad faith about Linux - this quote, article, statement, etc... then makes it onto Groklaw's toplevel story, a sense of outrage and injustice is built up, worst-case scenarios are explored, and then there is a constructive, facts-based, breaking-down of the rhetoric. That's all fine, in and of itself, but the way I see it, all you need to do is break down the facts once and it becomes obvious that the situation is not quite as bad as you can make it out to be if you freak out about it in your own mind. It's another implementation of Hades to have to do this every day for the rest of eternity. I find sometimes that it's easier to remain calm, and not worry. So my concern is that there appears to be a need to amplify, or that Groklaw has, at times, amplified the FUD, prior to breaking it down. Instead of amplifying the FUD, ignore it, then you don't need to break it down. That's my complaint. So tie that in with an open-source insurance company, and I don't like what I see one bit. Of course insurance companies will amplify FUD if it is in their best interests, but you shouldn't on the one hand complain about FUD and on the other amplify it whilst offering a solution to it from which you will reap financial gain. I don't like that at all. Maybe the open-source insurance company will be non-profit, that's one thing, but if it needs backers, those people will be in it for money. Somewhere down the line, "open-source insurance" will be making someone rich. That's my point. So don't amplify the FUD, please.
What is an appropriate remedy if there were to have been some misappropriated code, which there more than likely is not? Certainly not what SCO is suggesting. They aren't actually focused on a remedy, they appear to be focused on the "freedom" part, the freedom to view source code and modify it. This freedom is going to be extremely, extremely, extremely difficult to insure, because you never know who is modifying what, where, when, and how; to have to submit your source code to the insurance people every time you change something is kind of absurd, but that's of course what you are going to have to do. The "price" of Linux is what it is. You can either afford it or you can't. It's the freedom to modify, the freedom to change the source, that's the freedom that is being attacked. Losing that freedom is not an appropriate remedy for copyright, patent, or trademark infringement. There are more appropriate remedies for those types of violations. Insurance will also have to put some kind of damper on that freedom in order to be financially plausible. That's why I think it's a bad idea.
I think it's an overreaction. People aren't going to stop using Linux, it's going to be very hard to get people to stop using Linux. Especially in an international sense. Linux is not just about the US, it's about the world. Worst-case scenario, those countries who don't adopt an attitude like Germany has are going to lose out. Obviously, insurance is neither a particularly desirable thing, nor is it anyone's first choice. Now, insurance against a poor legal system, that's a good idea!
Find a way to insure freely modifiable software without putting a damper on the freedom to modify. I bet you can't.
to make me support Microsoft.
The premiums for Linux insurance would probably be greater than those for a Windows license.
So much for that TCO bullshit from the Zealots.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
So if BP and PJ can come up with AV against BS IP suits, maybe MBA PHBs will just buy a policy, instead of the FUD from MS and its minions.
" So, it should come as no surprise that SCO Group's (Nasdaq: SCOX) lawsuit against the Linux industry has produced what could either be a profitable new market niche or a spectacular new scam: open source insurance."
whatever
.Sens.
hey sexy
slack drwtsn32? :p
.Sens.
Why is it that so many companies can come up with business models that deal with open source software but most open source software relies on "donations"?
Not trying to be cute. I've wondered about this before.
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