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'Infectious' Open Source Software?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the spreading-the-infection dept.

Gavo writes "Law firm Chapmann Tripp advises New Zealand State Services Commission that the New Zealand Government should be wary of using 'infectious' open source software. They claim 'While the use of open source software has many benefits, it brings with it a number of legal risks not posed by proprietary or commercial software.'"

2 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. CommonSense-based by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Though the article (yes I have RTFA) uses flaming terms like "risks" and "infectious", it's actually a plain HowTo on opensource licenses in goverment environment. It includes guidelines like the following:

    Managing open source software risks can be complicated. To help simplify matters, SSC makes the following general recommendations to cover most open source legal risks facing government agencies:

            * Using stand-alone, open source applications:

    (a) Only use open source licences that have been legally reviewed, including the GPL, LGPL, CAL, MBSD, MIT, which have been reviewed and are recommended by SSC for use in accordance with this guide.

    (b) Obtain performance and intellectual property warranties from the supplier of the open source software, where appropriate and available.

            * In-house modification or integration of open source software: In addition to the above recommendations:

    (a) Choose one of the following distribution strategies for the resulting software:

    (i) Closed distribution, i.e. only within the agency's legal entity.

    (ii) Limited distribution, i.e. to other legal entities on non-open source terms.

    (iii) Open distribution, i.e. on open source terms.

    (b) Manage the chosen licence to match the chosen distribution strategy as follows:

    Licence Open distribution Limited or closed distribution
    GPL: May use Quarantine

    LGPL: May use Quarantine or meet LGPL exception

    CAL: May use Quarantine or meet CAL exception

    MBSD: May use May use

    MIT: May use May use

  2. RTF Document by KingSkippus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Read the actual document, not just the summary. The actual document isn't that bad.

    The stuff inside isn't that big a secret to most folks. It mainly boils down to, "Using open source software under licenses we've reviewed is okay, but be careful if you're developing code using open source software that we don't want released to the masses, because under some licenses, we may be obligated to."

    In fact, this document is probably a good thing, in spite of a somewhat badly written summary. Check out Chapter 2:

    (a) Only use open source licences that have been legally reviewed, including the GPL, LGPL, CAL, MBSD, MIT, which have been reviewed and are recommended by SSC for use in accordance with this guide.
    (b) Obtain performance and intellectual property warranties from the supplier of the open source software, where appropriate and available.

    This only makes sense. I can't imagine anyone disagreeing, saying that you should use software with a license we're not familiar with, or to disregard the IP of open source authors.

    Also, look just below it. It says that for software development that is for open distribution, it's okay to use open source software. For software that is for limited or closed distribution, don't. Is this new? Am I missing something? If anything, people who are interested in open source software can look at this document as permission to go forward, not as a hinderance!

    I mean, I realize that the words "infectious" has negative connotations, but I just don't see this document in and of itself as a bad thing. And even though I'm a strong FOSS advocate, the stuff that's in there is stuff that I would recommend to any company, government or organization to consider in their decision whether to use closed- or open source software.