Software is eating the biotechnology world. Managers in the traditional biotechnology sector may not be familiar with open source software and related compliance issues, but these issues are bound to come up as they develop technology solutions to the problems of biotechnology.
Many computer programmers like to incorporate code from open source software into software products because there is no point in reinventing the wheel for standard, simple or common software functionalities.
Open source software is software code that is typically gratis, well-vetted, and commonly used. The source code of open source software (e.g., the human-readable component of software) is made available with a license, provided by the copyright holder, to freely modify and use the software. However, use of open source software comes with strings attached. Some licenses are permissive, meaning that a user is merely required to attribute the underlying software back to the copyright holder. However, other licenses have a "copyleft" requirement for the user of the software to also make the corresponding source code available under the same licensing terms. Violation of the terms of an open source license may open the door to undesirable litigation and bad publicity. ...
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