“So let’s just unpick this statement a little. Unfortunately, I
can’t find any details on the Gartner site, so I’ll have to make
general statements about free software and licensing.“First, if companies are simply using open source software
as-is, there are no “potential liabilities”: none, zero, zilch. I’d
be willing to bet that this covers 90% of open source in companies
today. You can even make changes to the code and not make them
public – provide you don’t circulate them outside your company.
It’s only when you start combining open source code with other code
that licensing issues might arise, but even here, the spectre of
“huge potential liabilities” is nonsense.”
Gartner’s FUD
By
Glyn Mody
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