> I do feel this is an urgent subject and I too would
> appriciate comments and help in this subject. I'm
> sure he is not alone

> > now we're having problems getting legal to give
> > the thumbs up to using libcurl. In fact, they
> > vehemently want us to rip it out.

> > They're worried that code contained within libcurl
> > might either violate someone else's patent or
> > copyright, and that there is a risk that we might
> > thus get sued as a result of using this library.

Maybe he is not alone, but I'm not sure it's your
problem.

The only advantage commercial software has, with
respect to this issue, is that the company selling
it is probably automatically guaranteeing the user
against losses in such lawsuits. If it's large
and financially solid, with essentially permanent
life and lots of cash, that's something open-source
software will only provide when it has been issued by
someone like IBM or HP. If I wrote some commercial
software and sold licenses to use it, the buyer would
have no such protection because I don't have the
money to back him up if he did get sued.

But "Legal" is not talking about a real live problem,
only about the lack of some implied protection if it
later turns out that there is an issue. The same
situation exists when the company buys hardware from
a small or financially weak supplier -- there's
no one there to back them up if there's a lawsuit
because the purchased device infringes some patent.
Yet companies do this all the time.

Many companies forbid executives from flying
themselves anywhere, for similar fear that, should
they accidentally crash into a commercial flight and
kill 200 people, the company would be responsible,
and could be destroyed by the enormity of the loss.
That, like this, is a "Management decision" -- is it
an acceptable risk, given the probability and amount
of a loss and the gain from accepting the risk?

My guess is that the probability of a problem with
libcurl is extremely low and the likely cost of
the problem if it materialized despite the low
probability is fairly small. On the other side,
the gain from using libcurl instead of some other
approach might also be fairly small. But does this
company only buy software from Microsoft and other
huge, cash-rich companies, for this reason?

My belief is that the lawyers are being somewhat
unreasonable, but unless the company's management
is used to dealing with their choice to have an
un-businesslike legal team by overriding Legal's
excessive caution, the company won't use libcurl and
none of us except the poor man there who wants to use
it should care at all. That man may want to put his
feelers out for a new job, if this is typical within
that company.

Regards,
 - Irving
-
 Irving_Wolfe_at_Happy-Man.com Happy Man Corporation
 +1 206 463 9399, ext. 101 4410 SW Pt Robinson Rd
      fax: +1 209 463 9255 Vashon, WA 98070 USA

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Received on 2000-05-02