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Open Source Software By its very definition, open source software is freely available to use. Developers of the open source software own the intellectual property rights within the software, but they permit it to be licensed for use by anyone in most cases. As with everything, it is not as straightforward as it may appear - most commercially available open source code comes with licence terms that must be adhered to in the same way that proprietary software licence terms must be complied with. This usually requires a copyright acknowledgement notice to be reproduced by the users of the open source code. Some open source codes have more material restrictions on their reproduction and distribution. It is always vital to check the legal requirements attached to the open source code that you utilise in your own commercial software, if you do not want to find yourself unable to continue to license your software because of an infringement relating to a relatively minor open source part of your product. Because the intellectual property rights in the open source code are owned by the developers, if a software product contains any such code the licence agreement for your product should acknowledge that you do not own all of the code in your product. Most purchasers of commercial software licences will expect to see warranties that you own the intellectual property rights in the software and that you are not infringing any third party intellectual property rights. Whilst you are able to make the second statement if your software contains open source code (providing you have complied with the terms of the open source licence ), you are not able to make the first statement. L icence agreements can easily deal with this distinction, so you should ensure that, if necessary, yours does. |
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