🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <bontchev.725149117@fbihh>, bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Vesselin Bontchev) writes:
> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
> 
> > By the way, has no one noticed that in the license RSA agrees to
> > defend any licensee against any lawsuits for patent violation
> > (for use of unmodified RSAREF) without limit. That, and much else
> > in the license agreement, seems to me to put paid to the various
> > nasty inferences made by some (I'm speaking generally, not
> > particularly about Miller) here about RSA's motives, particularly
> > since the license is free.
> 
> How generous from their part, isn't it? Now, who the hell could be
> those bad guys who will be going to sue you for usage of RSAREF?...

You're reading too much into the change.  The ``hold harmless''
language is fairly conventional in such situations.  I've seen it in
many different contracts.  It's not to guard against a specific, known
contingency; rather, it's to guard against unknown ones.  In this case,
RSADSI is distributing some software covered by a PKP patent.  Does
RSADSI have the right to do so?  A cautious attorney would demand
letters from PKP verifying that RSADSI has that right, and letters from
MIT and Stanford -- the patent holders -- verifying that they've given
PKP the right to grant sublicenses.  After all, how do we *know* that
PKP really has that right?  Their corporate name isn't on any of the
patents.

The hold harmless clause is RSADSI's way of saying that they're very
confident that you don't have to worry.  Not that there's any real
doubt about RSADSI's rights here -- but there have been enough
allegations of improper behavior that adding the clause is cheap
insurance.