Martin LaMonica's article, "Linux defenders go after more alleged GPL3 offenders," marks the line drawn in the sand between, "What the heck is open source?" and "We better not be using any GPL3!"

While I can't intelligently comment on whether the content of the GPL is good or bad, oppressive or otherwise, I will say that these lawsuits are proof positive that the purported "FUD" surrounding the importance of open source license audits is in fact, real.

Although the conspiracy theorists would say that license infringement was engineered by Microsoft, or Richard Stallman, or better, aliens, the fact that corporations are having to engage their legal teams, spend corporate dollars, and see their reputations put on display as questionable, shows that license enforcement is actually happening (albeit in small doses thus far).

If you are a corporation employing developers in any number, or if you're a developer accountable to your company, and you do not have a 360 degree, in-depth view of what open source code is in your code base, you may well be next on the subpoena list.

Palamida was born from necessity - locating instances of open source code and their applicable licenses quickly, easily, and accurately, from amongst millions of lines of code. While the primary purpose of the company is still the same, the expertise and solutions have greatly expanded to include open source vulnerability detection - because no one likes vulnerable code. Open source audits allow organizations to confidently remediate risks long before the laywers, the press, or the aliens get wind of it.

--Melisa LaBancz-Bleasdale