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Licensing and FUD About Free Software

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OSS
Legal
  • Open Source License Compliance: Raising the Bar [Ed: Spreading FUD about "risk" of Free software licenses... in order to sell one's own proprietary software 'solution']

    Question is, can you have true security without being a company that focuses on license compliance? I think not.

    Some companies count on using open source software with no regard for the licenses associated with the code they use. Open source licenses give others permission to modify, use, and distribute software, but under specific conditions and terms. And, every component may very well have a different license. With the volume of open source being used, you can see how quickly this can get out of hand and lead to IP, reputation, and subsequent litigation down the road.

    Another statement I use quite a bit, “It’s a must, not a maybe.” Development teams need to respect the legalities associated with source code licensing by passing along a copyright statement or a copy of license text, or by providing the entire source code for the company’s product. Licenses range from fairly permissive (allowing the licensee to use code without responsibilities) to highly restrictive (extremely limiting, even requiring you to make your proprietary project subject to the same licensing terms of the OSS used).

  • Open source licence series - Altus: open source is big business, get used to it

    The idea that open source developers are college students, creating some really cool software that big organisations then exploit and don’t give anything back may have been valid 20 years ago, but not today, it’s not how things work.

    Open source is now big, with major players driving innovation, like the OpenBank Project, the Banking API platform and OpenLogic.

    For a working example, AT&T is (obviously) a household name and very large quoted business. The organisation provides the majority of engineering, design and architectural resource for the ONAP open source project.

  • Open source licence series - Rancher Labs: Why vendor 'strip-mining' is an opportunity, not a threat
  • Open source licence series – Delphix: Rent vs buy, which fits your licencing cost model?
  • Open source licence series – Puppet: consumption without collaboration equals consternation
  • Open source licence series – Tidelift: Ethical source-available licenses challenge open source
  • Open-Source Software in Federal Procurements: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part 2 – The Bad

    In the first post of this series, we discussed “the good” of open-source software and why federal buyers should find it attractive. However, when it comes to the federal government accepting open-source code with open arms, the reality is certainly more mixed. Faced with changing and technical regulations, government contractors need to know the major drawbacks of using open-source code in government contracts. In this second entry to our open-source series, we explore “the bad” impacts of open-source use in government contracting.

  • EDRM Announces Newest Affinity Partner Merlin Legal Open Source Foundation and New Processing Specifications Project

    Setting the global standards for e-discovery, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) is pleased to announce its newest affinity partner, the Merlin Legal Open Source Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve access to justice and make legal and regulatory compliance more efficient through the use of open source software and secure cloud computing. The Merlin Foundation was established in 2019 by John Tredennick, its executive director and a longtime industry expert and former CEO and founder of Catalyst Repository Systems, a leading search and technology-assisted review e-discovery platform.

Ugly Law Firms About "Ugly" Free Software

  • Open-Source Software in Federal Procurements: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part 3 – The Ugly

    Concluding our blog series on open-source software in the government market, it is time to turn to the darker side of things. We already discussed the “good” of open-source software for government buyers, and we walked through the “bad,” explaining how some elements may conflict with federal laws or priorities. Now we will look at the “ugly” side of open-source software and how contractors can mitigate associated risks.

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