"Software as a service (SaaS) entered the IT landscape in 2000 and has revolutionized the deployment models of many software companies and even entire industries, such as Internet search. It has also becoming an increasingly popular form of consuming applications within enterprises of all shapes, sizes and geographies.
"SaaS also brought about a heated debate over the distribution and licensing of open source software. This is of particular importance for open source companies whose software is used to power Internet-based services and applications. If someone uses their open source software over a network and alters the code in any way, do they need to make their code changes available and does it fall under the guidance of popular open source licenses such as GPL...?"
