2018 Roundup on Open Source Licensing

Here is my list of the top developments in open source licensing in 2018.

  • Huge business exits.  Red Hat, GITHUB, Elastic, Mulesoft,
    Magento, Pivotal and Heptio all had big financial wins this year, proving the viability of open source businesses.
  • Microsoft joined OIN.  Microsoft joined the open source community and agreed to limit patent aggression.
  • GPL Cure Commitment.  Many companies hopped on the GPL cure commitment bandwagon, in the effort led by Red Hat.
  • Licensing paradigm shifts.  Redis, Elastic, Confluent, MongoDB, and other businesses adjusted their business and licensing models, largely in reaction to the explosion in cloud based services using their software.
  • OSS Capital! Obviously I am not neutral about this one, but a venture fund targeted to open source developers is off to a roaring start.

Thanks to everyone who read, reposted, re-tweeted and commented on my blog this year.  Have a happy (and free and open) new year!

Author: heatherjmeeker

Technology licensing lawyer, drummer, dancer

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