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I worked at a bank too. There is a list of software and libraries approved for usage. GPL cannot make it to the list because the license is the first thing that

I worked at a bank too. There is a list of software and libraries approved for usage. GPL cannot make it to the list because the license is the first thing that's verified when requesting to add a new library. I always wondered what would happen if some developers used some GPL lib and shipped to customers and it was noticed and caused the company to be sued. Would all the developers be fired on the spot and the software undone?

mhh__ 6y ago
I would guess no unless someone stepped in from above. Unless it ended in the complete source code of all their systems, perhaps. In a lot of commercial code there is almost literally nothing worth protecting, just sunk-cost. If a finite element package got open sourced, that would be a minor disaster (although even then you're paying for the UX and support not the code) but things like firmware are barely worth the electrons on the drive. The point being the business impact would probably be fairly minor for most projects.
- derefr 6y ago
  "A bank" contains multitudes, though. The big banks all have investment arms, which in turn have in-house algorithmic-trading subsidiaries. Now imagine that someone snuck some Affero GPLed code into the trading engine... (It is at this point that I realize that maybe one of the reason that HFT people like arcane formal-proof languages so much—besides just verifying that they won't lose money—is that the ecosystems of unusual languages are smaller, so it's less likely that any problem has a solution involving third-party code, and therefore there's less concern about IP contamination.)
- user5994461 6y ago
  There are passwords, certificates, API keys, more GPL code, stolen code, commercial libraries (integrated but forgot or stopped to pay the license a while ago), vulnerabilities, ridiculous comments, trade secrets (trading algorithms, credit score calculation, fraud detection), etc... For any sizable software that has been alive for 10 years. There is no way it's safe to open source the repo.
deleted 6y ago
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igneo676 6y ago
My understanding is that there's a period of time after receiving a cease-and-desist that you can remove the offending GPL library without opening your codebase. After that, there's no harm to either side: They don't have to release code and the licensed software's owners don't have their rights violated any further Of course, IANAL

mhh__ 6y ago

I would guess no unless someone stepped in from above. Unless it ended in the complete source code of all their systems, perhaps. In a lot of commercial code there is almost literally nothing worth protecting, just sunk-cost. If a finite element package got open sourced, that would be a minor disaster (although even then you're paying for the UX and support not the code) but things like firmware are barely worth the electrons on the drive. The point being the business impact would probably be fairly minor for most projects.

derefr 6y ago
"A bank" contains multitudes, though. The big banks all have investment arms, which in turn have in-house algorithmic-trading subsidiaries. Now imagine that someone snuck some Affero GPLed code into the trading engine... (It is at this point that I realize that maybe one of the reason that HFT people like arcane formal-proof languages so much—besides just verifying that they won't lose money—is that the ecosystems of unusual languages are smaller, so it's less likely that any problem has a solution involving third-party code, and therefore there's less concern about IP contamination.)
user5994461 6y ago
There are passwords, certificates, API keys, more GPL code, stolen code, commercial libraries (integrated but forgot or stopped to pay the license a while ago), vulnerabilities, ridiculous comments, trade secrets (trading algorithms, credit score calculation, fraud detection), etc... For any sizable software that has been alive for 10 years. There is no way it's safe to open source the repo.

deleted 6y ago

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igneo676 6y ago

My understanding is that there's a period of time after receiving a cease-and-desist that you can remove the offending GPL library without opening your codebase. After that, there's no harm to either side: They don't have to release code and the licensed software's owners don't have their rights violated any further Of course, IANAL