Sunday, September 28, 2008

Reasonable article, silly spin

A recent Computing article looked at the dangers of using externally sourced software when 'selling' a software 'product'. They pointed out that the terms of licenses for the 3rd party software may be problematic when selling-on bundles, or even when selling a company which made money that way.

Absolutely. Think what might happen if a company did not comply with a license from Microsoft, Adobe or Oracle ... swarms of lawyers may well blacken the skies, or perhaps just the BSA.

But the unfortunate thing about this article is that it does not promote general diligence when it comes to software licenses, instead it takes a pot-shot at 'open source' software:

Open source's dark side by David Boutcher & Bob Stankey

Their silly stance rather dilutes an important message, i.e. make sre you understand the licenses of the software you depend upon.