Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

[Posted January 13, 2004 by corbet]

Here's a News.com article on Novell's new protection offer. "Under Novell's plan, the company will provide customers with protection from copyright infringement lawsuits to the tune of $1.5 million, or a factor of 1.25 of their software purchase price. To get the protection, customers must buy SuSE Linux and support from Novell and sign a licensing agreement..."

Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 4:27 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] (7 responses)

ugh ... "sign a licensing agreement?" well, I sure hope they make their customers sign the
GPL then, or else ... :-)

Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 4:34 UTC (Tue) by huaz (guest, #10168) [Link] (1 responses)

Why, does GPL provide legal protection?

Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 16:09 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Yes, it does. If you give or sell me software under GPL you cannot claim I violate your copyright if I follow conditions imposed by GPL. But this may not be sufficient to protect me from third parties claiming that you took their code illegally. IANAL.

Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 7:56 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (4 responses)

They can make their customers sign a licensing agreement for anything
in SUSE that is not covered by the GPL, such as YaST.

Also presumably the idea is that Novell licenses to its Linux customers
anything in Unix that may turn up as part of Linux. Remember that
according to Novell *they* own the Unix copyrights, not SCO.

Anselm

Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 15:41 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] (3 responses)

What I meant was, they cannot simply impose additional terms to the GPL, if GPL'd software they indemnify. i.e., they'd have to GPL any of "their" Unix code if they were to use that as a weapon.

I think Novell are playing quite another game. SUSE and SCO have strong contracts on UnitedLinux, one must presume. Why else would SCO still advertise UnitedLinux on their web site? So, SCO is most likely a toothless tiger against SUSE, which Novell knows. It's an indemnification program that will cost them nothing, since SCO themselves have already indemnified SUSE.

At least that's my view of the situation.

Correct

Posted Jan 13, 2004 16:42 UTC (Tue) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link] (2 responses)

They can't add terms to the software license which conflict with the GPL.
They can sell services like warranties or indemnification. But calling it
a license is a little confusing as you point out. IANAL.

Correct

Posted Jan 13, 2004 21:41 UTC (Tue) by huaz (guest, #10168) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't know the detail of the agreement, but maybe the following is possible:

They provide you indemnification while you have to agree to additional terms. For example (just an example), you give up some rights GPL gives you - like modifying or redistributing the source.

This is nothing wrong about it, IMHO.

Correct

Posted Jan 14, 2004 1:13 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

They cannot require anyone to give up his/her GPL rights. They can, however, refuse to indemnify anyone who hasn't paid them, and they can refuse to indemnify a modified Linux kernel (after all, the modification might violate someone's copyright or patent).

This is similar to Red Hat's deal with their Enterprise version. They can't stop their customers from making as many copies as they want, but all of their customers signed contracts saying that they owe Red Hat N*X dollars per year in support costs where N is the number of machines running Enterprise.

The GPL explicitly allows the selling of a warranty or services for a fee. Indemnification is a type of warranty.

Novell offers legal protection for Linux (News.com)

Posted Jan 13, 2004 12:10 UTC (Tue) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link]

Here is what Novell's site actually says:

How does this program work?

Indemnification is offered for copyright infringement claims made by third parties against registered Novell customers who obtain SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 8 and who after January 12, 2004 obtain:

Upgrade protection; and,

A qualifying technical support contract from Novell or a participating Novell or SUSE LINUX channel partner.

To obtain the benefit of Novell's program, customers must accept the program terms and conditions.

You need a Novell site login to read the full T&C's; anyone out there have one?

Smells like a lock in strategy

Posted Jan 13, 2004 13:06 UTC (Tue) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link] (2 responses)

Smells like a lock in strategy for Linux users. Novells up to its old tricks?

Smells like a lock in strategy

Posted Jan 13, 2004 14:31 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (1 responses)

Don't be silly. Novell is just promising to only provide legal indemnification for its paying customers. Just because some kid downloads Linux off a website somewhere doesn't mean Novell will protect. You need to be a customer with their upgrade plan. If they didn't do that, they'd be bloody stupid.

Smells like a lock in strategy

Posted Jan 14, 2004 1:15 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

From the GPL: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."

Novell is selling a form of warranty protection, for a fee.