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OSRM Declares Linux Free of Copyright Violations
tmu writes "According to a recent press release, the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels are free of any code that violate copyrights. OSRM, the new startup formed by Daniel Egger and including groklaw founder Pamela Jones, completed a 6-month review of all code in both kernels. They must be pretty confident of the results, because they're offering product liability insurance to both developers and users."
Groklaw's running a more detailed piece that gives more information than in the press release. This basically ammounts to a reporter reporting about herself, but that also makes it information straight from the source.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You have it backwards: They're offering insurance because they're that sure they're right. If they were worried they were wrong, then they'd be worried about having to actually pay claims and wouldn't be so willing to offer the insurance.
Essentially they're trying to call SCO's bluff.
If I read the article correctly this is not a per cpu protection license. SCO wants to lighten your pocket book by $699/per CPU. This coverage is a lump sum with protection up to the amount x you feel comfortable. Big difference.
RTFA, oh nevermind, this is Slashdot. Anyhow, $250/year is just for developers to insure themselves against legal defense expenses. Companies are expected to pony up $30,000/year for $1,000,000 coverage. That's not a one-time payment, either.
Peace and love, y'all
I'm not sure how they can come to that conclusion without having access to the code which SCO is claiming that they have which was inapproprately added into the Linux kernels.
if you read the article, you would have seen that they traced the roots of all the code (be it bsd/pd or the credited author) and are basing their opinion on that research. They feel they have "sourced" all the source.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Others have stated this already, but just to clarify: all insurance companies reinsure their policies, and it goes especially for areas that tend to be all-or-nothing.
Take a southern California or Tokyo-region real estate insurance company - they're in the same kind of boat. One big earthquake and they are up a very narrow creek with nary a paddle in sight. So what they do is insure their claims in turn in other companies; preferably companies that have little or no other exposure to the same risks. And of course, thiscompany would be a reinsurer for other comapnies as well.
For the risk-taking company, it is a way to dilute risk; rather than, as you say, have either a huge windfall or a total disaster every year, you try to arrange for a reasonable profit every year, rather than just on average.
For the reinsurer, this is another way to dilute risk, and get in on an area in which you have no expertise of your own; from this perspective, the spread between what the company pays you and what they take in from the original insurees is the payment they get for being the expert in the area so you don't have to. A northern European insurance company does not have much in-house expertise on north American earthquakes or their precise effect on real estate holdings, and they would not attract enough business to make it worthwhile, but by reinsuring a California company they get into that business, while relying on that company to do a far better risk assessment than they could do themselves.
The problems occur, of course, if enough things (like natural disasters) happen in a short enough time frame; that can bring _every_ insurance company into trouble, even companies that at first glance have nothing to do with it. You may see your car insurance rise 20% because of flooding in south China, a hurricane off the coast of Florida and a medium-scale earthquake in Hokkaido in the same year.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Depends if you mean sued as in 'successfully sued', or just the initiation of the process, and if you believe your nation's legal system is just and fair.
Even "unsuccessfully sued" can cost someone a hell of a lot of money. Have you seen how long some of these cases can drag out? It costs money just to defend yourself. And if you successfully defend yourself, you still have to launch your own counter-suit if you want to reclaim any of those losses.
While insurance seems of little use to most people, I can see some companies thinking it's a worthwhile investment.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Linux is not public domain, Linux is licenced under the GNU GPL, but all contributors to Linux keep their copyrights. So Linux being placed in the public domain would NOT be a win. now saying that the code in Linux apears to be properly contributed would be.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
I'll bite, despite your insinuation that I haven't read more than the Slashdot summaries of SCO news. I've read virtually every SCO story in the news for the last year plus, including painful stories on Groklaw, so I think I know my stuff for the most part.
So you know - the "shreds' of evidence you refer to took almost a year for SCO to produce, hardly "offered" as much as produced under pressure. Also, it was references to header files and standard error files - hardly unique, and in other places, code that could, within hours, be attributed to other sources. If there were really offending code, SCO could have tried to get someone with some sort credibility in the Linux community to sign an NDA in the first place, not start out by deceiving the public with the "MIT math team" or whatever it was they claimed - a dept MIT claims has never existed.
What about the fact that the coverage they are offering is already available from most of the largest E&O providers in the market (AIG, ACE, Hiscox, Chubb, Zurich, CNA, etc.) 1. cheaper 2. with higher limits 3. with more experienced claims handling staff 4. not tied to specific best practices and techniques (without which coverage does not attach) and 5. as part of a larger E&O program that will provide more coverage for the more likely problems - bugs.
Seriously, this is really just a lot of fluff at this point. $100k in defense costs and $1m in limits is nothing for large companies that buy $50m - $100m liability towers, and a small company looking for coverage can buy $1m in limits (including software copyright) for a lot less than $30k.
And for the record, Bruce, reinsurance is not a great answer. Just look at the problems the London markets are having getting Swiss Re to pay their claims. For a small, poorly capitalized company like OSRM, more than 3 or 4 losses (which their adverse selection will guarantee) will leave them cash flow negative, unable to continue functioning while they wait for the reinsurers to cut a check.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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Their stock is in a screaming dive. Closed at $7.77 today, down from $22 at peak.
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Their VCs want their money back.
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Before they can sue Linux users over copyright violations, they have to beat IBM and Novell and Red Hat and Damlier-Chrysler or AutoZone.
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They're losing against IBM, and the other suits aren't going anywhere yet.
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IBM's law firm is Cravath, the big hammer of corporate litigation. Cravath puts huge teams of lawyers on the job and has an organized process for not missing anything and not making mistakes.
Nobody wins a weak suit against Cravath.
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SCO has never sued a Linux user that didn't have a previous contract with SCO. If they try, any such suit can be stalled until the big lawsuits are settled, for the same reason the Red Hat lawsuit is on hold.
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Because SCO has been sueing their own customers, it's dangerous to become an SCO customer. SCO sales have thus tanked.
So there.Urban Legend or just Apocryphal, the story goes Bill Gates was playing $3-$6 Texas Hold'em at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas in the early 90's. Seeing Doyle Brunson, 2 time World Series of NL Hold'em Poker, playing $2000-$4000 Hold'em in the upper section, Bill Gates had a lacky go buy Doyle Brunson's book -- Super System, co-authored by David Sklansky, Mike Caro, Chip Reese, and Bobby Baldwin (current casino mananger of Mirage). He [Gates] then sent the lacky over to get the book autographed. Doyle Brunson is reported to have said something like: "If the richest man in the world doesn't have the guts to come over and play me, I'm certainly not going to give him my autograph".
Oh, and as for Linux 2.4 and 2.6 insurance -- is this implicitly admitting that SCO actually has a case against 2.5?