Microsoft Word Hardware Reconfiguration Methodology V final2

Permissions and limitations

It is important to understand what is permitted under both a governing commercial software license and the various packages’ underlying licenses. Each license grants a specific set of permissions and limitations. Some licenses, commercial and open source, are very restrictive while others are far more permissive. For example, GPL-based licenses are far more restrictive than their BSD counterparts are. However, much will depend on what is specifically required of the license and of the software, including any potential changes to be made to the source code, both in the present and future. For example, if a software component’s license has changed and it no longer reflects the needs of the organization it may be more appropriate to replace it with another component whose license is more in line with the requirements of the organization. Thus, the permissions and limitations sought after in a license should be closely reflected by the organization’s requirements of the software and of the C2 system. It is also important to consider that a governing licenses change over time and the rights and limitations given to the end user also change as per updates and upgrades implemented against the various systems. Therefore, accepting newer versions of software can have a direct impact on the type of maintenance to use which can affect the C2 system’s long-term evolution.

4. For consideration

As with all legal issues, operating system and software licenses vary from case to and from package to package and distribution to distribution. The vendor may simply apply a standard generic license to the distribution thus covering all the underlying software with its license. Some of the issues that have not yet been examined are as follows:

1. 
   If the distribution is bundled using a standard commercial generic license, is manual system maintenance permissible? If it is permissible, what are its limitations? If not, then legal counsel should be sought out before attempting manual system maintenance.
   

2. 
   Depending on the vendor’s commercial license it may be necessary to renew on a yearly basis the software support contract simply to have the right to use the distribution, let alone modify it [3].
   

3. 
   Do the open source licenses found with the distribution allow for the modification of the kernel, system configurations, applications and libraries? Generally, this is not an issue; however, this may be problematic if source code and IP are integrated.
   
4. 
   Have any of the software packages’ licenses changed? If they have, are they compatible with existing licenses and with both current and future modifications to source code? What is the impact of these license changes?
   

5. 
   Can the vendor’s distribution source code be patched or integrated with non-vendor source code that has been provided by the open source community or third-party?
   

6. 
   According to the governing license can specific packages be changed, modified, or replaced? What do the licenses of the individual packages permit?
   

6.