Slashdot Mirror
Lloyds of London to Offer Open Source Insurance
darkworm writes "Lloyds of London, the world's oldest insurance house, is to offer indemnification for IP litigation worldwide according to the Channel Register: 'Lloyd's of London is close to offering independent insurance protection worldwide against potential IP litigation involving Linux and open source software. The financial services giant has agreed to take on the risk associated with open source, and is finalizing arrangements to work through Open Source Risk Management (OSRM) who will become Lloyd's sole U.S. representative.'"
...an insurance company, it provides a market place where several companies (or syndicates) can sell insurance.
OSRM will assess both the risk of the software in use and the individual company, before passing on the risk to the appropriate insurance company on the Lloyds market. OSRM expects to announce the first customers this Fall, and will initially charge organizations $60 per server.
As the article summary indicates, OSRM is going to be the US agent for the insurance. Some arrangement like this was more or less inevitable if OSRM's insurance concept was going to work. OSRM itself almost certainly doesn't have the resources (read, deep pockets) to underwrite the coverage.