> From: Irvine, Chuck R [EQ] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> There are many in the company I work for that would like to leverage
> open source software in general and and Tomcat in particular. However,
> our legal staff resists the idea because of perceived legal risks. I
> know that there are companies who provide indemnification as part of
> their open source support products, but I wonder to what extent such
> indemnification is really necessary.
[Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer, I've just worked with several of them on
various OSS issues. Disregard this message if the legal framework in
your country is not precedent-based]
Without knowing *which* risks your legal staff are concerned about, it's
difficult to comment specifically. The biggest risk I've seen lawyers
concerned about goes roughly as follows:
- Open Source software was not covered in my course, there is no
specific primary legislation, there have been few cases through <insert
top court of country concerned> and there is therefore little precendent
to go on;
- Therefore if I recommend for it I will be risking my career, whereas
if I recommend against it I will not;
- I am a lawyer, I am self-selected to be risk averse, therefore I will
recommend against it.
To an extent, this is fair enough. OSS licensing is a new area. Test
cases are sparse, and therefore it's genuinely difficult for lawyers to
know which way the courts will rule when such cases do come through.
Therefore the risks *are* somewhat higher than with commercial software,
where there's decades or centuries of precedent to go on.
The risks can typically be addressed for any given product, for example
by sourcing it from a company that provides support and indemnification,
*if* you can get the legal team to state precisely what the risks are.
I'm guessing you won't get a clear statement of the risks out of them,
or it'll take a long time as they research the issues.
- Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To start a new topic, e-mail: users@tomcat.apache.org
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
