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Indemnification Roundup
Skapare writes "O'Reilly Network's LinuxDevCenter has a great article summarizing the indemnification possibilities for businesses considering switching to (or staying with) Linux. Author Tom Adelstein covers the business risk mitigation aspects of using Linux today, and details available indemnification offerings from Novell, HP, Red Hat, and OSRM. So why not print a copy and send it to your company CEO."
For something that has yet to be proven, and all signs point to the SCO case as being a farse.
These companies backing their products with legal aid are simply doing it as a marketing ploy. RedHat, HP, Novell.. they know there's nothing to worry about, that's why they've all been so eager to extend these "services."
I can't wait until the whole SCO case is just over. We all here know that SCO will lose.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It's just human nature, everyone wants to make money out of something.
In the case of FOSS, it's usually support, and if it's not support, it'll be insurance. And if it's not insurance, it'll be protection money.
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Well, anyone can sue anyone for any reason, so there are risks for just existing. Any larger company has a legal department and a legal budget as it is.
My point is, there's nothing to stop some small software maker in Australia from claiming that a technology inside Microsoft SQL server violates their patent or copyright and threaten to sue end users of SQL server (which I seem to recall actually did happen).
Risks are everywhere. Please stop supporting the myth that using Linux is extra risky.
Does Microsoft not hire programmers that used to work at other firms, for example? Couldn't they "accidently" contribute code from a former employer's products? Are you willing to indemnify all users of Microsoft that they are not under any legal risk for using Microsoft software if you are so sure?
So if the next SCO comes out screaming that windows has their stolen code and they want to alsu try and extort... oh wait fine all users $500.00 per CPU then everything is fine because it's microsoft and they will be a nice benelovent company and protect us?
Waht exactly are you smoking this morning? as not even crack can make a person that wacked out.
it applies to microsoft and ALL microsoft products exactly the same UNTIL microsoft comes out and says, "we will take the fall for YOU no matter what."... and we know that wont. Steve Ballmer is not that smart or strong of a company leader to do that.
It comes back to accountability, which is a problem in the world of OSS. If there is tainted code in the Windows source that spurs a lawsuit, you can bet that this lawsuit will be on Microsoft's hands, not on users of its software.
In some sense, it's similar to the Napster (the Napster of yesteryear, not the name-whoring music store) vs. Kazaa from the RIAA's perspective. Microsoft is like Napster in that there is a central place of accountability, so the RIAA can just go there (in this case, Napster's servers) to settle their beef. Kazaa however (or bittorrent/whatever), is like the opensource world. There is no single place of accountability and therefore the problem has to be solved at the users end. I'm not saying that the kernel does have SCO's code, but if it did, wouldn't you like to know who's accountable.
With the Open Source community, this problem is a dangerous one. Since every user has access to the source code, and every user is potentially a kernel hacker, does this not make every user somewhat accountable? (yes, this argument is stretched a little thin, but its food for thought).
I wouldn't be so quick to indemnify myself; this just 'shows' SCO and their paid shills that they're right. ... they obviously know they've stolen our code for communist activities!"
"Look, these Linux users are getting indemnification
Once a business demonstrates sufficient long-term viability, there is inevitable pressure to consolidate and "standardize" the market by the removal of small competitors.
The most politically attractive tool for removing small vendors from a market is overwhelming economic force (free as in beer). Current case in point, Gmail will destroy small ISPs by teaching users to demand hundreds of megabytes of email storage. Yahoo & Hotmail have already responded.
Indemnification will do the same for Linux distributions. You may be able to roll your own distro, but it will be increasingly difficult to distribute it without legal exposure (not only to the publisher, but the distribution channel, e.g. SourceForge/OSDN).
After economic consolidation comes political consolidation (regulation). Sender-pays email, state-issued ID for publication, bank-issued ID for consumption, firewall liability insurance in exchange for permission to face the public network, VOIP-driven consolidate of "offline" and "online" IDs -- and just when you're about to go insane with boundary barriers: premium green-light services that guarantee swift passage to those who can afford it.
Creative anarchy will remain possible within organized economic pools that can negotiate regulatory barriers to entry and evolution.