Open Source Software (OSS) refers to software with source code that is freely accessible and can be modified and shared by anyone. It encourages collaborative software development and innovation.

However, the open nature of OSS comes with its own set of challenges, including:

The landscape of OSS licensing is diverse and understanding and choosing the right type of license to license your OSS is essential for legal protection and compliance. There are many types of licenses, notably:

Choosing an appropriate OSS license requires a careful assessment of your goals for the software. If fostering widespread use and contributions is a priority, choose a permissive license. However, if maintaining control over how the software and its derivatives are used is important, go for a copyleft license.

While using OSS is often key to developing software, there are some elements to be careful about.

While OSS licenses offer broad freedoms for using, modifying, and sharing software, each license comes with specific terms that must be adhered to, to avoid legal complications. This is notably highly relevant when integrating OSS into your own code.

Key steps to ensure compliance include:

Mixing it with proprietary code might lead to the requirement to disclose and open-source the whole code (an action known as license infection). In such cases, you are also likely infringing copyright. Be especially careful with copyleft-licences (e.g. GPL)).

Copyright infringement can not only result in license termination, which will affect your ability to offer your own software, but it can also expose you to claims for damages. In addition to the financial liabilities, non-complying with OSS terms may cause reputational damage and raise red flags for investors in future financing rounds and due diligence.