Microsoft Word Hardware Reconfiguration Methodology V final2

Compatibility

License compatibility issues are important but are often overlooked, whether for FOSS or proprietary software. An important question to consider is ‘does the software license allow me to make modifications to the operating system?’ In addition, as software changes over time so to do the underlying licenses. It is common for FOSS software to change to another license type. This gives rise to the following question: ‘how will changes in FOSS licenses affect subsequent modification of that software?’ License changes occur in large part do to pressure from the software’s users and developers, but sometimes it occurs if the software maintainer has a philosophical “change of heart.” While this is very unlikely to occur for well-established FOSS projects such as the Linux kernel, core system tools and utilities the possibility always exists. License changes may also be necessary to ward off claims of intellectual property [19].

If system maintenance is to be required in the near future, it is important to determine if current software licenses are the same of compatible with their newer counterparts. The answer will depend on many factors the most important of which is the governing license that all other software licenses fall under. For example, a commercially based distribution has a governing license that states that its license supersedes all other underlying licenses. Thus, all changes to the software and underlying licenses are the responsibility of the vendor, not the end user. Therefore, if a software package changes its license to another type that is incompatible with the current governing license it remains the vendor’s legal problem.

Conversely, those performing manual system maintenance and are no longer have a valid support contract with the vendor fall outside the protective umbrella of the vendor’s governing software license. Thus should underlying software licenses change from one type to another then legal counsel should be sought out before proceeding to make any changes. All too often, changes to FOSS licenses, although minor in nature, will allow the end user to continue working with and

modifying the source code. However, in the event that the new license is incompatible with the needs of the end user (i.e. divulging intellectual property) he can, at his discretion choose to replace the software package for another type that satisfies his specific requirements. The other alternative is to not adopt the newer software package with its incompatible license and manually maintain the older software without using any source code from the newer software or from the user community. For example, a FOSS package originally developed under the BSD license is eventually re-licensed under the GPL license. This would severely affect new source code modifications and require them to be distributed back to the community. The only way around it either use and maintain the older source code or switch for another similar FOSS software package.

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