As open source gains backers, its security is becoming more robust. Companies must walk on egg shells to prevent altering open source code which does not belong to them however.
Computer Weekly 360 has an interesting article which talks about the business that is open source software. How do companies actually make money by giving away free software? For those of you not familiar with open source software, the code is usually free for download and use. Even the license under which this code is distributed, either by general public license (GPL) or GNU license can permit you to use the software for commercial applications.
“It is a common misconception that open source means just Linux. This is like saying all cars are Fords. Linux is just the operating system that has captured the imagination and made open source famous. There are many open source resources, such as Apache (the world’s most popular web server), Perl and PHP (programming languages) and MySQL, a database which is claimed to rival Oracle. “
But where is the line drawn for companies? Does re-writing an open source code and as their own program constitute breaking any laws? SCO might believe so as we reported earlier. SCO is claiming that IBM made concerted efforts to destroy the economic value of Unix, particularly Unix on Intel hardware platforms, in order to benefit IBM’s Linux service business. SCO is requesting damages of no less than $1 billion.
