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Just a reminder, these posts are not legal advice. This site is the personal blog of Mark Radcliffe and the opinions expressed are those of Mark Radcliffe and not those of his clients, DLA Piper or the clients of DLA Piper.

About Me:

Mark Radcliffe

I earned a B.S. in Chemistry magna cum laude from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. I have been practicing law in Silicon Valley for over 25 years and am now a senior partner at DLA Piper. DLA Piper is a new global law firm formed in 2005 from the merger of three law firms. The firm now has 3600 lawyers in 25 countries and 65 cities. My practice is a mix of corporate securities and intellectual property. I work with many startups as well as large global companies. I have had the opportunity to work with companies in many industries, ranging from semiconductor to digital media to open source. I am the General Counsel, pro bono, of the Open Source Initiative and I ran the "Users" committee reviewing the GPLv3 draft.

Managing Open Source: DLA Piper Survey Results

23/10/08

The DLA Piper 2008 Technology Leaders Forecast Survey found that  the use of open source software, while widespread, remains misunderstood. The Survey found that software companies used open source software in 65% of their products, as compared with use of open source software in 55% of the products of all technology companies. This number drops to 29% of the products when all respondents are included. However, only 48% of these companies have an open source use policy (software companies were more likely to have an open source use policy).

Smaller companies, those with fewer than 1000 employees, used open source software in almost half of their products (44%), yet 35% of these companies do not have open source use policies. Larger companies, those with more than 5,000 employees, reported use of open source software in only 9% of their products and 65% do not have open source use policies. I find that this number for use of open source software among large companies is strikingly low.

I think that the survey reflects a continued misunderstanding among large companies about how widespread is the use of open source software.The failure to have an open source use policy is very dangerous in the world of complicated “hybrid” products: open source licenses do not mix well with commercial licenses without careful analysis. http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=18. The risk is particularly high now because the financial downturn means that licensors will be carefully reviewing compliance with license terms to try to find new sources of revenue. For additional thoughts on this issue, you can see my interview. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsZKWFmT0qs&eurl=http://www.dlatechlaw.com/search?updated-max=2008-10-21T13%3A46%3A00-04%3A00&max-results=7

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4 Comments

  1. [...] Managing Open Source: DLA Piper Survey Results Law & Life: Silicon Valley, Mark Radcliffe [...]

    Pingback by 451 CAOS Theory » 415 CAOS Links - 2008.10.24 — October 24, 2008 @ 6:55 am

  2. [...] yet survey after survey shows that companies do not have open source software policies. Mark Radcliffe reports that the DLA Piper 2008 Technology Leaders Forecast Survey found that only 48% of companies* have [...]

    Pingback by Must haves: an open source strategy and policy | OpenLogic Blogs — October 24, 2008 @ 9:42 am

  3. [...] They noted that governance remains the number one problem. They noted that 69% of companies surveyed do not have a formal policy for evaluating and cataloguing OSS use. This number is even more dramatic than the findings of the survey for the DLA Piper Global Technology Summit. http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=108 [...]

    Pingback by Law & Life: Silicon Valley » Gartner: Open Source Software Adoption Continues to Rise — November 18, 2008 @ 8:49 am

  4. [...] panel on VC $, moderated by Mark Radcliffe [...]

    Pingback by Upcoming SDForum Global Open Source Colloquium « Waiming Mok’s Blog — March 18, 2009 @ 2:42 pm

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