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Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

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Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#31

Post by withinboredom »

totetsu wrote: post #11
itsdrewmiller wrote: post #5

These all seem accurate and I'd add even moreso than security (which can be prioritized for other reasons) a focus on buttoning up open source licensing / IP ownership is a dead giveaway that a sale is close. Also the hiring and retention thing is probably less about distraction and more about not taking on additional expenses in the middle of due diligence - generally the acquirer will want to have more of a say in…

On a tangent , can anyone point me to resources on solving the problem of distributing docker images with oss licensed software inside them?

It’s not a problem per-se. You just have to document them and their license. Whether you actually have to do that is another question since most believe that that would fall on the base image publisher, not the final image. Further, a proper base image will already include licenses in the base image because most OSS licenses require distributing the software with the license available.

The only thing you would have to document are the things you specifically added.

At least, that’s been my experience.

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#32

Post by jamestimmins »

pianoben wrote: post #9
itsdrewmiller wrote: post #5

These all seem accurate and I'd add even moreso than security (which can be prioritized for other reasons) a focus on buttoning up open source licensing / IP ownership is a dead giveaway that a sale is close. Also the hiring and retention thing is probably less about distraction and more about not taking on additional expenses in the middle of due diligence - generally the acquirer will want to have more of a say in…

100% - OSS IP licensing is exclusively the provenance of public companies, companies about to go public, and companies about to be purchased.

I don't actually know what "buttoning up open source licensing / IP ownership" means. Is that making sure you have a license for all software you're using?

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#33

Post by jll29 »

jamestimmins wrote: post #32
pianoben wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% - OSS IP licensing is exclusively the provenance of public companies, companies about to go public, and companies about to be purchased.

I don't actually know what "buttoning up open source licensing / IP ownership" means. Is that making sure you have a license for all software you're using?

You make sure that employees don't own what they write, but sign it over to the company (usually language to that effect in the employment contract, if there is none).

Also running tools like Black Duck over your source code tree to check open source license types or use of unlicensed code snippets from the Web.

NDAs can be given to people who know how something is done, knowledge that they could use to re-create the product or service elsewhere, which the acquired does not want. In some cases (that I have not personally seen) making people sign non-compete agreements, meaning if they quit they cannot work on the same thing for some time (not legal everywhere).

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#34

Post by bunabhucan »

jamestimmins wrote: post #32
pianoben wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% - OSS IP licensing is exclusively the provenance of public companies, companies about to go public, and companies about to be purchased.

I don't actually know what "buttoning up open source licensing / IP ownership" means. Is that making sure you have a license for all software you're using?

If "BigCorp" buys "CoolIdea" for their nifty piece of software "SecretSauce" they do not want to find out later that "BigCorp"/"CoolIdea" is required to publish source code for "SecretSauce" because it's based on "GNUOpenSauce" or that "CoolIdea" was selling something based on "FSFSauce."

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#36

Post by bruce343434 »

bruce511 wrote: post #13

There are always signs, and they are easy to rationalise in hind-sight. The danger is that there are signs for lots of things, so jumping to conclusions regarding the reason can be dangerous. For example, we recently got a contract with a company fanatical about security. They wanted additional special insurances, which in turn wanted additional company-wide security policies. This affected everyone, even though the…

That security point stood out to me as well. First of all, who intentionally writes code to contain SQL injection vulnerabilities anno 2024? Or knows about it and doesn't fix it? Is it really that weird that someone fixes it?

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#37

Post by pflenker »

bruce343434 wrote: post #36
bruce511 wrote: post #13

There are always signs, and they are easy to rationalise in hind-sight. The danger is that there are signs for lots of things, so jumping to conclusions regarding the reason can be dangerous. For example, we recently got a contract with a company fanatical about security. They wanted additional special insurances, which in turn wanted additional company-wide security policies. This affected everyone, even though the…

That security point stood out to me as well. First of all, who intentionally writes code to contain SQL injection vulnerabilities anno 2024? Or knows about it and doesn't fix it? Is it really that weird that someone fixes it?

The SQL example relates to an acquisition that happened in 2013, and states that the vulnerabilities have been around for some time. The early 2010s have really been a different time in that regard.

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#38

Post by totetsu »

withinboredom wrote: post #31
totetsu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangent , can anyone point me to resources on solving the problem of distributing docker images with oss licensed software inside them?

It’s not a problem per-se. You just have to document them and their license. Whether you actually have to do that is another question since most believe that that would fall on the base image publisher, not the final image. Further, a proper base image will already include licenses in the base image because most OSS licenses require distributing the software with the license available. The only thing you would have t…

If the license says I must make the source code available, don’t I also have to have some mechanism to provide that code if asked?

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#39

Post by withinboredom »

totetsu wrote: post #38
withinboredom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a problem per-se. You just have to document them and their license. Whether you actually have to do that is another question since most believe that that would fall on the base image publisher, not the final image. Further, a proper base image will already include licenses in the base image because most OSS licenses require distributing the software with the license available. The only thing you would have t…

If the license says I must make the source code available, don’t I also have to have some mechanism to provide that code if asked?

Debian based distros (and all the others) have a command to run and get the sources for ALL open source packages installed on the system. So, there is nothing to do there. apt get source package.

If someone asks for source code for a library, simple point them to the GitHub repository. This isn’t rocket science and it isn’t worth automating because practically nobody asks for it.

Re: Signs you're about to be acquired (2020)

#40

Post by swiftcoder »

jamestimmins wrote: post #32
pianoben wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% - OSS IP licensing is exclusively the provenance of public companies, companies about to go public, and companies about to be purchased.

I don't actually know what "buttoning up open source licensing / IP ownership" means. Is that making sure you have a license for all software you're using?

Big companies are very allergic to GPL-like copyleft licenses. You generally have to go over the entire dependency tree with a fine tooth comb and make sure that nothing is going to get you sued to released the source code (inside a big company there are processes to ensure this on an ongoing basis)
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