A federal appeals court just settled a question every M&A lawyer should have been asking for two years: can a machine own what it creates? The answer is no. And that answer has quiet, expensive implications for anyone buying a company built on AI-generated code. Let’s enter Thaler v. Perlmutter. The Case In March 2025,…
Early open-source software (OSS) audits: a seller’s advantage in M&A is becoming increasingly clear in today’s competitive deal-making environment. As software becomes a core asset in nearly every acquisition, the presence of OSS within a target company’s codebase introduces both opportunities and risks. By conducting open-source software audits before formal due diligence, sellers can reduce…
Open-source software permissive licenses 101 is an essential topic for any organization or developer working with open-source software (OSS). Unlike restrictive or copyleft licenses, permissive licenses grant users significant freedom to use, modify, and redistribute code with minimal obligations. This flexibility has made them one of the most popular choices in the software industry, especially…
Ignoring technical risks is one of the most common M&A red flags in tech-heavy deals. And when it comes to open-source software (OSS), the margin for error is shrinking fast. Acquirers who don’t dig deep into a target’s OSS usage risk inheriting technical debt, legal exposure, and integration headaches. Here’s what savvy buyers look for…
The auditing of open-source software (OSS) is rapidly emerging as a distinct field at the intersection of law, software engineering, cybersecurity, and corporate governance. While traditionally confined to niche technical tasks or legal due diligence during M&A, OSS auditing now demands frameworks that bridge disciplines and address complex, large-scale risk environments in both private and…
In the open-source world, the choice of license shapes how software can be used, shared, and monetized. One of the most commercially significant—and sometimes controversial—licenses is the Affero General Public License (AGPL). Born from the same family as the GPL, AGPL adds a powerful twist: it extends copyleft obligations to software offered over a network.…
In a groundbreaking development for open-source law, a California court recently ruled that end users of a product embedded with open-source software may have the right to enforce the software license terms—even if they didn’t write the code themselves. At the center of this legal shift is SFC v. Vizio, a lawsuit filed by the…
Open-source software is no longer just an option — it’s the new normal. According to the latest survey by OpenLogic, 95% of IT professionals are now using open-source tools, signaling a significant shift in the way organizations build, deploy, and scale technology. As businesses increasingly adopt cloud-native architectures, open source is emerging as the foundation…
The ubiquity of open-source software in the technology field today plays a key role in this arena. However, it also introduces risks—ranging from licensing issues to security vulnerabilities. To mitigate these risks and maintain transparency, incorporating open-source software audit reports into product documentation and release notes is becoming not just a best practice but a necessity.
A recent supply chain attack targeting the widely used tj-actions/changed-files tool has exposed thousands of organizations to security risks, highlighting the ongoing vulnerabilities within the open-source software (OSS) ecosystem. This attack has once again demonstrated the importance of rigorous security practices when integrating third-party dependencies. The Attack: How It Happened The tj-actions/changed-files tool, a GitHub…