Question

Building a commercial product may use various open source libraries that have use of other libraries. In an ideal world you would know which licenses they use and whether it is safe to use them.

However, if you use an open source product (or commercial can apply here also) that is in breach of licensing and you don’t know about it how does this affect what you do?

So for example I use Product A that uses a licence than means product A and anything that uses it has to be open source. However Product A has breached the rules but hidden the fact.

Now this means my product is also supposed to be open source but I have no idea it should be. Can i be in breach of the license even though I don’t know I am?

Answer 1

As it happens I am customizing a EULA for a commercial software component (using a template from a Legal firm) and I found this clause in it

(b) that the use of the Software by the Licensee in accordance with the terms of this EULA will not infringe the Intellectual Property Rights of any third party;

What I would do is scour the license of the component you are using as you may find this clause. If so (Im not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advise), you may be able to reasonably assume that so long as you are complying with the license of the component you do own, you will not infringe the license of any component you do not own.