The Study on Business Models and Related Legal Issues of Open Source Software

• Main Authors: Chang, Yi-Chan, 張憶嬋
• Other Authors: 劉江彬
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07516862632987888580

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 智慧財產研究所 === 94 === Open Source Software, which is promoted by a group of software programmers who believe that computer software should open to the public, and the creation, development, modifying, value-added shouldn’t be bothered by the over-protection of intellectual property rights. By disclosing the source code, other programmers can improve the efficacy of the software. With the advantages of low cost, high security, high stability, plus the minimum control by the right holders, the open source software movement has gained major industry players’ support. For example, IBM, Intel have all expressed their support for the open source movement and also developed relevant products using open source software. In addition to industry, many countries, such as European countries, US, Japan, China, Korea, also show their strong support for the open source movement. Under such trend, Taiwanese government also takes positive measures to promote the development of open source industry’s development and application in Taiwan. It indeed can save a large amount of cost and create huge profit if making use of open source software properly. How to transfer the potential business opportunity to substantial revenue depends on the establishment of business models. Nevertheless, while open source movement is getting momentum, it also faces renewed legal challenges. Compared to propriety software, which usually has non-infringement of intellectual property right clauses, open source software can’t provide this kind of guarantee. This issue was especially noticeable when SCO sued IBM for 5 billions damages in 2003. In addition to the legal risks, the most stringent challenge for the open source movement is its license structure. Until May, 2006, there are 58 open source license agreements have being certified by Open Source Initiatives (OSI), the open source software’s alliance. The problem, however, is that every open source license agreement has different terms and conditions. With so many different license agreements and such uncertain legal effects of those agreements, it erected a barrier for the wide-spread application of open source software. As a result, this thesis would like to conduct a thorough research on open source software from different dimensions. One part is about the business models which can be adopted by the open source software, and this part will especially focus on how the industry players evaluate their own core abilities and advantages to adopt suitable business models. The other emphasis is on the legal issues of open source software, including the license agreements, the legal risks and intellectual property problems. Open source software is a chance and also a challenge for Taiwan. If we can make good use of the advantages of open source software, it will definitely bring immense progress for the IT industry of our country.