Open source legal: business as usual

Abstract

Open Source is no longer a "special case", but "a" or "the" mainstream development model. Most if not all companies and governments are not just end-users of FOSS, either on the desktop or on the server, but also intensively use Open Source in their software development projects - or have to make their software compliant with open source stacks. Management of the legal issues of open source can no longer been seen as "special case" either, but fully integrated into the software development, testing and release cycle. A number of tools have been set up to support this legal management, and aid compliance with FOSS licensing obligations. Anyone developing FOSS should be aware of and become proficient in these tools: Fossology, SPDX, Maven or Eclipse plugins, the BAT, OpenChain, License choosers and License calculators, ...