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June 4, 2008

Over the past two to three years, SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) lawsuits have provided a lot of controversy in the open-source and Linux community to say the least.

Edmund Walsh of the Boston IP law firm Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks says "overall, SFLC lawsuits represent muscle-flexing by the open-source community and may foreshadow new risks in the irreconcilable conflict between open-source software and its widespread use by for-profit companies."

Some in the Linux community are certain that this particular attorney has never heard of Red Hat that is now aiming for $1 billion in revenue.

He's propably also never heard of Oracle that runs its own infrastructure on open source software, of Cisco, now the world's largest networking vendor that is backing Linux 100 percent and many other for profit vendors that all have somehow reconciled open source and... well yes-- profit... (!)

The notion to some that the term 'open source' somehow is a sort of inhibitor to making a profit at some time down the road hearkens back to the earliest days of open source when it was a concept that wasn't well understood and certainly not greatly adopted by enterprises.

Walsh: Wake up! Look at the calendar... It's now 2008 and open source is a strong and very popular vehicle for innovation in the IT industry, and oh yes, some profit too...

Nevertheless, it is the opinion of many observers that the actions of the SFLC are the necessary actions of a legal group to defend the rights AND the interests of open-source developers. It's just as simple as that!

If a for-profit company or organization uses code licensed under terms of a license, then you are legally bound by the terms of that license!

It's not even about open or closed source for that matter...

Rather, it's all about the legal license which also happens to be a legal contract as well. It's really disheartning that some just don't understand this, AND especially when these people are members of the legal profession! You'd think that at least THEY would know better... (!)

Case closed your honor...

Source: Linux World.

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