Beware the open source software risks

01 February 2008

Four US companies have been sued for failing to comply with open source software licences. What do software users need to do to ensure that they stay on the right side of the law?

Merrill Lynch and VeriSign use it. So does the US government, DreamWorks, Amazon.com and Goodyear. And the chances are that your company is one of the thousands of organizations and businesses that are making increasing use of open source software provided and maintained by companies such as Red Hat, Novell and Oracle. There are obvious advantages: open source software can save companies money, provide them with additional rights, and is often proving to be more robust than proprietary alternatives.

But just because open source software comes without many of the initial costs associated with products developed by proprietary rivals, it doesn't mean that users should become complacent about their obligations under the terms of the software's accompanying licence. Although the open source software movement has its roots in a philosophy of sharing and collaboration, today's software developers are becoming increasingly determined to enforce their rights by taking infringers to...

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