problems in software development
Uno of the big problems in open source and which has already been talked about here on the blog, It is the issue of compensation or remuneration for work. carried out, because it is a fairly complex topic due to the different issues it involves.
And leaving aside the issue of “money”, another of the factors that bothers or to call it another way "it is the red dot" of open source developers, it is the issue of the additional work, effort and time required to maintain "their work" that others take advantage of to create commercial products.
At the time We talked about an article by Thomas Stringer, which addresses all of these issues, which it mentions increasingly discourages developers and more so because of the question of how corporations take advantage of open source ecosystems without adequately paying developers for their time.
Thomas Stringer mentions that developers should be compensated and/or that the project receives adequate collaboration from the beneficiary companies/projects and this is where James Bottomley's proposal comes in IBM engineer, in which he proposes basically make those with their products or projects that generate renumbering, are responsible for errors and/or vulnerabilities of the code they are using from another developer's work.
As such, the proposal not bad, since, as we mentioned, one of the main annoyances that it generates for many open source developers is the issue of others using the code from their projects for their products, which generates a profit and they are not able to compensate the development of the original project or at least allocate a resource, whether monetary or workforce (developers) to help development.
James Bottomley's proposal to shift legal responsibility for errors in source code from developers of open source projects to vendors of final commercial products could mark a significant change in the dynamics of support for open source projects. This approach could be an important boost for many open source developers, as it seeks to somehow “force” direct or indirect support of projects.
The point of the above is not to say whether this commercial influence is good or bad, but rather that the rise of Foundations has changed the public perception of Open Source. No longer seen as the home of scrappy volunteers fighting for technological innovation against entrenched commercial interests, open source is now seen as just another development tool of the tech industry.
Under this proposal, if a company uses third-party code in its product and a bug or vulnerability in this code causes damage to the user, the responsibility and burden of compensating for the damage would fall on the manufacturer of the commercial software product, and not on the developer of the open source library.
The proposal suggests implementing this transfer of responsibility by including a clause in the license, establishing an agreement to indemnify and protect the development participants from any legal claims arising from the use of all or part of the source code provided under that license, whether as a component or product. This clause would apply especially in jurisdictions that impose additional obligations to maintain software products. In essence, this proposal seeks to align incentives and ensure that those who commercially benefit from open source projects assume the legal responsibility associated with their implementation, thus promoting greater commitment and support for the sustainability of these projects.
In current practice, legal risk management in the open source space is often simplified by including a clause in the license. This warning states that the developer assumes no responsibility for possible errors, does not guarantee the functionality of the code, and does not undertake to resolve problems. In this scenario, the user agrees to use the code at their own risk. The lack of guarantees from developers has encouraged the emergence of a business model based on paid technical support, which initially dominated the development of the open source ecosystem.
Finally, If you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the following link