The use of Free Software in a business environment has been the subject of debate for a long time. Free software, in the GNU Project's definition, is software that is free to use, free to examine, free to modify, and free to share. It does not necessarily mean that it is free to obtain. While a free software application does not necessarily have to be developed using the Open Source methodology, in practise it becomes open source as soon as it's released by virtue of the freedom to examine and modify the code.
Many technology companies have adopted free software solutions for some of their processes because it's farily widely recognized that having the code available to a large community of users generally ensures that bugs and faux pas are caught and fixed. Free scripting engines, web servers, and database backends are becoming more common on corporate servers, but they are far from the standard.
In "sue happy" North America (OK, primarily the US - I was just trying to be nice), many organizations base at least some of their purchasing decisions on the availability of someone to take action against if a product fails to perform as advertised. These organizations literally want someone to sue if something goes wrong.
The quirky thing is that any decently composed End User License Agreement (EULA) generally indemnifies the vendor against any legal action regardless of what the product does when used. In most cases, there is very little difference between the legal remedies available to pursue a non-free software vendor and a free-software supplier.
In the pursuit of due-dilligence when sourcing a product, I think it would pay large dividends in many cases to take a close look at the licenses of two competing free and non-free products (assuming there are two like products that will meet your needs). Really compare what legal recourses are available under the conditions of the two licenses. You may find that you've been using closed, hard to integrate and modify solutions based on an erroneous impression of legal remedies.
Article by Jon Watson from http://www.jonwatson.ca
Comment Preview