ONLamp: GPL Gets Another Brickbat–But Where Does the Sarbanes-Oxley Problem Really Lie?

“Honestly, I don’t know how thousands of businesses can thrive
on free software. They certainly wouldn’t if they listened to the
software industry experts. First there were all the claims (borne
out by some real major failures in the industry during the dot-com
bust) that there was no business case for making money on software
that everyone could download, run, and freely alter. Now that free
software is a well established industry, there comes a white paper
by Jay Michaelson of Wasabi Systems, which got reported on by
ITManagersJournal.com, NewsForge, and others.

“You’re probably expecting me to sneer at Michaelson’s paper,
but I’m not going to. It’s an excellent essay, in my opinion. It
describes a real–though very limited–problem. In fact, I think a
recognition of this problem may lead to an increase in dual
licensing, which will allay many of the fears expressed in the
paper…”

Complete
Story