Businesses who buy the open-source operating system from HP won't have to worry about a lawsuit from the SCO Group.
Hewlett-Packard said Wednesday that it would protect its Linux customers from any legal action that the SCO Group might take against them. For the past several months, the SCO Group has charged that the Linux kernel violates its rights because the open-source operating system includes elements of SCO's Unix System V source code. SCO claims the right to seek compensation from Linux users for alleged violations of its copyrights.
HP is the first Linux vendor to offer to shield its customers from any SCO Group lawsuits. HP customers qualify for this protection as long as they buy Red Hat Inc. or SuSE Linux AG versions of Linux directly from HP with a standard support contract and they do not make modifications to the Linux source code. Customers also have to agree to make all future Linux purchases through HP, which claims to have earned $2 billion in Linux-related revenue last year.
HP isn't offering complete protection to Linux users, just for claims made by the SCO Group. HP is protecting customers from legal action from the SCO Group alone because "that's where the legal cloud is," Martin Fink, VP of Linux, said in a Wednesday teleconference. As for any other legal claims that might arise, "we don't want to speculate on what's out there," he said.
HP's Linux customers have another option: Buy an SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux, which the company says permits the use of Linux without violating SCO Group's copyrighted Unix System V source code. Each run-time-only license will, until Oct. 15, cost a one-time fee of $699 for a single CPU system. After Oct. 15, the price will jump to $1,399.
News source: InformationWeek - HP Offers Legal Protection To Linux Customers
