[OS:N:] IP indemnification

[Jeff Kinz]

On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 02:47:05PM -0700, Jay Scherrer wrote:
> Lists,
> 
> Just coming from an eye opening discussion at GSLUG covering the still
> threatening legal issues concerning Open source software and Linux. I
> got what I call a "Bulletin".
>  
> I had just gotten home and checked my US mail. Microsoft had sent me a
> copy of their indemnification policy. Probably other persons on this
> list have received one also. My question as a struggling open software
> consultant, how do we counteract with this type of negative
> advertisement against Open source software. 

SCO is doing an excellent job of counteracting the intellectual property
rights FUD around Linux. : see http://www.groklaw.com

Also some of the statements you snipped from Microsoft's stuff can be
shown to be substantially false. 

For example the idea that open source vendors provide no IP
indemnification or only limited IP indemnification , is totally
laughable. This is made very clear by looking at IBM and
Hewlett-Packard.

In 2004 IBM made $96 billion dollars and HP made $80 Billion dollars
for a total of $176 Billion dollars.  

In 2004 Microsoft made $36.84 Billion, much less than either and only
a fraction of the combined companies.

OK, so shat?
So both IBM and HP provide total IP indemnification for any Linux
products their customers buy.

Clearly Microsoft's statements in this area have little to no contact
with reality and they're (MS) statements are not to be at all trusted
in this area.

So what is the final take away from all this?

Knowledgeable companies, many times larger than Microsoft, with years of
experience in intellectual property matters, (IBM is one of the most
prolific companies with regards to technology patents, in the world),
already know that Linux is "IP safe".  The people who created Linux know
that too.  As many of us have already noticed, the GNU organization, and
people like Linus Torvalds have complete confidence and faith in the
processes and they used to create the open source software so many of us
are using today.

More to the point some open source software like that created by the GNU
organization or the open BSD versions of UNIX have been widely used by
many commercial entities so if there is intellectual property
contamination of the software it is most likely that the open source
intellectual property has been leaking into proprietary software and not
the other way around.



> 
> Below are snippets of the enclosed letter titled: Insufficient
> intellectual property rights could be putting your company at risk. 
>    
> As you may be aware, end-user customers can be sued for their
> "unauthorized" use of intellectual property (IP) rights contained in
> software and operating systems products.
> 
> Then the letter goes on to discus Open Source Software:
> 
> "Discuss this issue with your IT staff to see if your company has
> deployed "Open Source" software. Open Source software vendors provide
> no , or very limited , IP indemnification. Deploying open source
> software that your organization downloads or copies free of charge
> typically means your organization receives no indemnification at all."
> 
> The letter then points to a links at www.getthefacts.com/report and
> www.getthefacts.com/protect
> 
> Included with this is a brief document explaining Microsoft's commitment
> to the end user.
> 
> 
> 
> Jay Scherrer  
> 
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-- 
speech recognition software was used in the composition of this e-mail
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.