Open source enforced
A recent court case in the US upheld an open source software licence in a way that is important for two reasons. In Jacobsen v Katzer (13 August 2008), a software developer (Jacobsen) had developed a...
View ArticleThe Affero General Public Licence
The AGPL arose from a perceived loophole in the GPL and other licences regarding software used across a network. (I’ll refer to this as software as a service for the purposes of this article even...
View ArticleThe allure and illusion of commercial software support
It is too early to tell whether the collapse of the Government – Microsoft “G2009″ licensing negotiations signals a desire by the Government to see an increased use of open source software. Certainly,...
View ArticleCold server backups
A recent court case (see below) has clarified (likely for the first time) the law relating to making a backup of proprietary software. The case decided that copying software to create a cold server,...
View ArticleSource available != open source
Someone recently asked what open source licence would enable them to provide their customers with source code, but prevent the customer from redistributing or reselling that code. They had a commercial...
View ArticleUnhealthy negotiations
Today’s report of the “successful” renegotiation of the Ministry of Health’s bulk licensing deal with Microsoft provides a text-book example of why the Government must properly mandate open standards...
View ArticleTech Law news 25 March 2010
Not a never ending licence A UK court has ruled, and a customer found out the hard way, that what was described as a “perpetual” software licence was not a “never ending” licence. In BMS Computer...
View ArticleOpen source in government tenders
Computerworld reports: A requirement that a component of a government IT tender be open-source has sparked debate on whether such a specification is appropriate. The relevant part of the RFP (for the...
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Technology law update 6 October 2010
Virtualised software licensing Licensing virtualised software isn’t getting any easier: Big picture: Software licensing for virtual desktops is incredibly complex, confusing and, in some cases,...
View ArticleUsing GPL code in your software
I’ve written an article on using GPL code in your software, covering “the essentials” on: The GPL (GNU General Public License) and LGPL (Lesser GPL) *US spelling… Challenges of interpreting the GPL...
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