Articles tagged ‘licensing’

Come on Linus, wake up! There are ogres out there…

The most popular open source projects are beginning to share the limelight with lesser known projects because of a phenomenon called the Long Tail. The Long Tail is key to the success of open source.

There is concern that GPL-covered software may be unworkable in up-and-coming developing countries where rampant piracy may ultimately compromise IPR protections inherent in copyright law.

Sun's annual Java Developer Conference in San Francisco this May brought waves of technology announcements. There were lots of lights, camera and even action towards opening up Java.

OSS and proprietary software are different sorts of animals. Evolution favors collaborators in OSS while preferring winners-take-all within proprietary species.

Like it or not open source license complexity will not disappear. OSS must develop survival strategies to navigate the minefield of new IP issues without tripping over itself.

Technology collaboration and its expression as open source software can build long-term immunity against the practices of a global patent system running amok.

While the UK’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) points to the savings possible using OSS and warns against high lifecycle costs of proprietary software, its cousin organization, the National Health Service (NHS), indulges in an expensive renewal of proprietary software licenses.

“Price-slashing” by monopolistic proprietary software companies masks the high costs customers still unwittingly pay. And when this rip-off is endorsed by governments and industry leaders, the digital divide can only widen.

Malaysia jumps to the forefront of the world’s growing official support for the Penguin by making OSS a procurement preference for government purchases.