Linux Solutions

In a report released at the start of this week on enterprise open source usage, Gartner’s research director Laurie Wurster made some bold statements, about companies that could face an intellectual property issue because they use software without any understanding of the IP implications of the licensing language.

The Gartner press release that announced the survey results said that 69 percent of the companies surveyed still have no formal policy for evaluating and managing open source software usage in their businesses, which Gartner claim is likely to open up “huge potential liabilities” related to intellectual property violations.

Wurster may have riffled a few feathers when she accused some businesses of having no formal policies in place: “Just because something is free doesn’t mean that it has no cost,” she cried.

“Companies must have a policy for procuring deciding which applications will be supported by and identifying the intellectual property risk or supportability risk associated with using [open source software]. Once a policy is in place, then there must be a governance process to enforce it.”

Having a policy in place is doubtless a good idea, whether you’re using open source r proprietary software, but is Wurster getting a bit over-zealous about the issue?

Pamela Jones from the Groklaw blog spoke about Wurster’s rant. “I think she’s overstating it. It’s hardly news that licenses need to be complied with, and heaven only knows the EULAs and/or agreements on proprietary licenses can be troublesome. Look at the SCO v. Novell 4-year ring-around-the-rosie on what the terms in a 1995 contract meant,” Jones said.

The Gartner survey said that a lack of governance was the biggest challenge for open source users, but Wurster believes while it’s all a bit of a headache at the moment, over time the ‘problem’ will diminish.

“Understanding when and how an alternative may be used is a frustrating process, especially when there are so many license types and forms from which to choose,” Wurster said. “As time goes by, many of these concerns will be addressed, but this continues to be a slow process. Increases in popularity and in the rate of adoption will drive the required changes.”

Pamela Jones believes that open source licenses are a lot easier to comply with that proprietary ones, and says that Wurster is causing a panic for no reason.

“The license you often see mentioned is the GPL, and it’s really quite simple to stay in compliance,” Jones said.

Jones gives good advice here: If you have concerns about open source compliance, look at a recently published GPL Compliance Guide. Problem solved.