Terracotta Discussion Forums (LEGACY READ-ONLY ARCHIVE)

Can anyone explain what indemnification assurances means, why it is good to have that, and most importantly what are the catches of not having that?

For instance, if we were to use Terracotta for a deployment (no redistribution), and Terracotta would have a licensing issue, would we be liable for that?

eelco wrote:

Can anyone explain what indemnification assurances means, why it is good to have that, and most importantly what are the catches of not having that?

For instance, if we were to use Terracotta for a deployment (no redistribution), and Terracotta would have a licensing issue, would we be liable for that?

Hi Eelco. Great questions. Terracotta customers who purchase a commercial license and support subscription (which is called the "Terracotta Enterprise License") receive an indemnification section in their agreement. Basically, indemnification means that if someone claims that the customer's use of Terracotta infringes their intellectual property rights, then Terracotta will defend the customer against the claim, and Terracotta will pay for any damages that are awarded. Indemnification is good to have, because it gives the customer added peace-of-mind and protection. Virtually every software vendor includes an indemnification section in their commercial license (and if they don't, they ought to).

Terracotta's open source license (the "Terracotta Public License") does not include indemnification. Terracotta open source software is distributed "as is," without a warranty. Every open source license (GPL, BSD, Apache, MPL, etc.) is like this, and every open source project that I'm aware of is like this, and here's why. Since users have total freedom to modify the source code in any way they want, there is no practical way for the original creator (such as Terracotta) to know how the software is being changed by future "downstream" users, and so there is no way for the original creator to be certain that those changes don't infringe on somebody else's IP rights. So, the "catches of not having" indemnification when using any open source software is that if you modify that software, then you are responsible for making sure that your changes don't infringe someone else's IP rights.

To answer your last question, if you use Terracotta for a deployment, and someone brings a claim against you for IP infringement because you use Terracotta, if you are using the open source version, then you would be liable. If you are using the commercial version, then no, you would not be liable, because the indemnification section would cover you.

I should also explain that before Terracotta releases any of its software (both commercial and open source versions), we review it thoroughly to be sure that it doesn't infringe on anyone else's IP rights, so that our customers and our open source community members can deploy Terracotta without any worries.

I hope that helps!