Perspectives & Strategy

All OpenSource licences are subject to the law of Copyright, according to a recent US Federal appeals court ruling (in the case of Java Model Railroad Interface). For the average IT department this will have little effect. However it does clarify specifically how OpenSource code can be adopted and amended.

When making use of OpenSource solutions little will change. The author of the code must still be recognised as the owner and an appropriate fee must be negotiated for the use of the software. The one thing that does change is that corporations leveraging OpenSource solutions with the intent of modifying them must exercise due diligence when incorporating their own changes into the original product. It is the copyright holder who engage in OpenSource licensing have the right to control how their material is modified and further distributed.

Anyone deploying a solution that includes OpenSource technologies should identify each of the sources that form part of the solution. For a software developer appropriate approvals will be required for each of component deployed and for any proposed modification to the original source code. It is important to track code and changes made. The impact here is that anyone corporation deploying such solutions must have the right procedures in place to manage their exposure, and should demand full disclosure and a full inventory within their solution. The original author need to remain credited with their work and a description of the modifications must be supplied.

This is where complexities can arise, and of-course legal problems is the right level of due diligence is not applied. The IT department implementing the solution on behalf of their business community will have the right to seek confirmation that usage agreements are in-place before deploying a specific solution.

Does this decision improve the chances for adopt-ability of OpenSource within the corporate world? It is argued that this decision encourages creativity and innovation, but it also demands documentation and accountability.

At the end of the day the CIO may feel that the best choice is to avoid the complexity associated with OpenSource licenses and all associated due diligence altogether. However the end-user corporation may not primarily be impacted by this ruling, but software developers will have an extra burden of proving that all rights and permissions are in place before deploying any solution.

Peter B. Giblett