F/OSS is rife with legal ambiguities and risk. F/OSS is subject to an anomalous, complex, and decentralized licensing scheme that has evolved entirely apart from conventional, commercial licensing models.

I’ve talked in the past about a number of “open source” business models. There’s the MySQL “dual license” model, where all the software is available under an open license but a proprietary license can be purchased.

THE Finnish public sector is now requiring (in so much as it can require anything) that all public sector agencies, including schools, drop any and all closed source, closed protocols, and closed formats* and move entirely to open ones.

Note: Free as in beer! Join MontaVista Software and distinguished open source licensing authority Jason Wacha for a review of issues surrounding open source licensing. Starting from base principles of differences between laws, licenses, and commercial agreements, Mr. Wacha will move on to issues surrounding the use of a General Public License (GPL) and how it affects Linux and other open source software.

The journey of software from an original, open source/hardware movement to a closed-shop, licensed world and back to open source is now complete and for many businesses open source is a viable and more flexible alternative,

The European Interoperability Framework, EIF, regulates how public agencies, citizens and businesses communicate with other on a software level. Now an alliance of proprietary ventures has had an influence on the EIF draft.

...If you are a FLOSS enthusiast, are you ready to start supporting closed source systems if research shows that the closed development method in fact produces better software? For example, security expert Steve Gibson recently argued persuasively on his podcast that there is no real difference in security between the closed and open source software development methodologies...

Recently the Dutch government adopted a plan called - translated - 'Netherlands Open in Connection' * which describes how the system of tenders should be changed to migrate to open source software and software conforming to open standards. However, the very same Department of Finance that wrote this plan - because the parliament asked for it - has written a 'closed' document covered under copyright for a closed tender which is called 'GOUD' (Gold). For a large part, the tender indirectly only allows Microsoft software it seems**. Last time there was a closed tender, Microsoft was awarded a deal of €156M worth of software and Michael Robertson's Linspire €6M alternative was not even considered***.

The open source model of developing software is making a significant impact, not only in the software development and broader high-tech community, but more generally within corporations, other types of businesses and organizations around the world, as Part 1 of this series describes.