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Asked: 2026-05-25T19:14:32+00:00

I’m designing an ecommerce solution, and have been researching various methodologies used by leading

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I’m designing an ecommerce solution, and have been researching various methodologies used by leading open source ecommerce solutions.

I realise that once I’ve set my features, and normailzed my database design, I may come up with something unique, but what claim do these open source solutions have on the outcome of my analysis?

I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, or infringe any license, but the code will be bespoke, and really, only the models (I’m using ASP MVC) will have any resemblence to any other solution..

I’m sure someone will be able to chip in with some experience here..

Cheers in advance..

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  1. Editorial Team

    You really need to talk to a lawyer about this – and a lawyer who understands copyright in your particular country, at that.

    Having said that….

    In general, Open Source projects have licenses that protect the code, but not the concepts. So, if you see that an open source ecommerce solution includes a shopping cart, with a database table storing this cart, and you create your own shopping cart, with a similar table, but don’t use their code, you’re in the clear.

    Even better – most Open Source projects allow and encourage you to use their software, and to extend it – though what happens with those extensions depends on the license. However, this doesn’t appear to apply to you – you say you’re only looking at the concepts, not building on top of someone else’s codebase.

    The bad news is that – depending on where you live – open source projects may not be your biggest intellectual property risk. Amazon famously patented “one-click” ordering, and could, theoretically, sue you if your solution includes “one-click” ordering.

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