[ Thanks to Jilayne Lovejoy for this
link. ]
“No matter what industry your business is in, you’re
almost certainly using open source software. The question is
whether you know how you’re using open source, what licenses are in
play, and whether you’re meeting all of your license requirements.
If you can’t answer all of these questions — and most
businesses can’t — you may want to perform an open source
audit as a starting point. Why? An audit can answer the question of
what Open Source Software (OSS) is present in your code and what
licenses that OSS falls under.“Open source is a broad term used to encompass a wide variety of
licenses. Generally, open source licenses allow redistribution and
modification of the work and do not place restrictions on fields of
use. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a community organization
that reviews and approves licenses that meet the Open Source
Definition (OSD). Many of the most popular open source licenses are
OSI approved.”