How to Assure Legal Compliance from Software Development to Delivery (
Page 1 of 4 )
In
the age of open-source and large-scale outsourcing, both assuring the
quality of software and taking it to market means ascertaining its
legal compliance as well. In recent years, numerous legal cases have
highlighted the business risks and the enormous costs incurred when
this is not done properly. These costs stem from involvement in
judicial procedures, software recalls, fixing legal compliance issues
post-release, and missed market opportunities caused by delays in the
development process. Other consequences include lowered valuations in
due diligence processes triggered by customers, potential or existing
investors, mergers and acquisitions, and other major transactions.
Software is a pervasive element in
most products and processes, and its sources have multiplied over time.
Sources now include internal developments, suppliers of subsystems and
chips, outsourced development contractors, open-source repositories and
the previous work of the developers themselves. Software, unlike
hardware, is easily accessed, replicated, copied and re-used.
Open-source software has become a
significant player in most software development life cycles, thanks to
the wide availability of source code, its apparent free cost, and its
high degree of stability and security. Open-source code is generally
free on the surface but it's not without obligations. It comes laden
with licensing and copyright conditions which are enforceable by
law—sometimes with dire effects for users who are not careful to
validate the pedigree of the code in their products (for example, the
origin and any associated obligations of all software components).
This doesn't mean that leveraging
outsourcing and/or open-source software is to be avoided. The issue is
not with the use of open source, but with unmanaged adoption and lack
of proper care to the copyright and licensing obligations it entails.
It's paramount that industrial managers validate the intellectual
property (IP) cleanliness of their products and services, and ascertain
that they meet all legal obligations before they reach the market.
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