On Friday, October 26, 2001, at 12:12  AM, John Hinsley wrote:

> Now, perish the tort ;-) I don't want to get involved in arguments with
> lawyers, but the GPL states:
>
> 8.

> 11.

> 12.

> Which seems to me to cover the indemnity stuff adequately.

This depends upon your definition of "adequately."  It leaves wide open, 
by intentional omission, a claim by the licensor against the licensee 
when a third party sues the licensor for what was done by the licensee.

There is a substantial reason that this is one of the more hotly 
contested issues in software licensing matters, and why many lawyers 
recommend that their clients pass on a big OEM deal rather than leave 
themselves wide-open to claims for what others have done with their 
code.  This isn't to say that a software user would not be deterred by 
the clause from using software that creates obligations to indemnify, 
but that is a different issue.

In short, you are mistaken, for the reasons previously noted.  In this 
post, you confused claims by the licensee against the licensor with 
claims by third parties who are not bound or in any way limited by the 
GPL.

That being said, Apple ultimately provided a much narrower 
indemnification clause to satisfy OSI in the APSL.  I'm sure we can work 
out something along those lines.