December 03, 2005
Sony's Cooking Up a Storm
A lot has already been said about Sony BMG's recent DRM problems. And of course, a couple of weeks it ago, it was discovered that they may be violating the LGPL license because they included LAME code in the product as well.
According to multiple tech media sources, it is supposedly a problem with First4Internet, a British company that designed the DRM software for Sony, as they were the ones who included the code into the product. The allegation that they are violating the LGPL license stems from the fact that if you use LGPL'd code, you must acknowledge the source and use of it and that you can provide the source code upon request.
Need we say it? We, of course, think this is exactly why companies should have IP Ingredient labels for their software. This is the perfect example how the labels could have been helpful to this entire value chain.
It's not just to help customers determine what's in the code they are purchasing, it's so that the software vendors themselves can ensure that they are meeting all of the legal and business requirements of the third-party licenses they are using...
Posted by foodforthought at December 3, 2005 04:29 PM