Slashdot Mirror
A Closer Look At Oracle's (Legal) Linux
A reader wrote to us with Matt Asay's Infoworld piece digging into the legal background of Oracle's indemnification offerings for Linux. Turns out, things are not quite so rosy as PR would make it seem. I know, I know...suprise all around. You can read Oracle's FAQ about it, but some of the tastier bits are that the indemnification covers *just* the kernel, and that whole thing about damage limits? Read what Matt has to say:'The indemnification is not in any way limited to the amount of money a customer has paid Oracle.
Apparently, Oracle's legal department missed the memo on this one. If you read Section J of the agreement (Limitation of Liability), you'll note that while Oracle offers unlimited indemnification for consequential damages related to an infringement claim (and that only for the one package, the Linux kernel), it caps all other damages at the amount you pay to Oracle.'
This is all part of M$'s plan anyways. Partner with someone and then sue the rest of the market for stolen code so that they can no longer operate, then the icing on the cake is assimilating the partner into M$ as a "friend" so that they can take their friends money. And oh, look no more competition!
tuck3r
Intent/motivation != skill.
The only "ulterior" motivation that makes sense is having a foothold in the Middle East for other strategic purposes down the road, since it's clear the area isn't going to get any saner any time soon.
In fact, the disparity between motivation and skill is part of the reason I believe that he's not there for "crushing the brown guy" or "stealing oil", because, as I said in that article, if that was the goal, we sure as hell wouldn't still be there trying to hold the place together. We'd have killed the "brownies", grabbed what we wanted, and been out by now.
The 'Slashdot Consensus' on Bush's motivations is definitely a big example of the exact fallacy that article is about; all we have to do is accuse Iraq of being a "war for oil" and ipso facto, the accusation is true, regardless of the fact that if this were a war for oil we'd be behaving very differently (and the difference in our behavior has only magnified since I wrote that).
I've never seen a motivation imputed to Bush that makes sense by this standard. If the goal was to avenge his father's failures, mission accomplished a long time ago, so why are we still there? War for oil, like I said, makes no sense. The only reasons to still be there are the desire to hold the strategic ground for our inevitable conflicts with Iran/Syria, and to help the Iraqis.
I'm open to other valid motivations, but they actually need to produce a "best action" that matches what we're doing, not mere "explain" an action if you squint hard enough.