No Open Source Software Allowed in Products and Services

I was recently pointed to a German bank’s AGB (general purchasing terms and conditions), which contained the following clause:

9.5 The SUPPLIER guarantees that as part of provided services no open source software has been used.

I think such a clause warrants a deeply humored #MUWHAHA.

First, the factual. Even Windows contains open source software. Open source software reigns supreme among engineering tools. It is completely impossible today that the provision of services by a supplier to a bank has not involved some open source software.

So maybe they wanted to say that any delivered software does not contain open source software, ignoring tools used along the way.

Then, I can only say: SELL SELL SELL that bank’s stock, because it is wasting money and precious resources on programming competitively non-differentiating software components many of which are readily available as high-quality open source components.

As I previously pointed out, in the news or Silicon Valley bubble, we sometimes think that open source has long won. In reality, to use a favorite quote, that future may already have arrived, it is just not evenly distributed yet.

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Comments

  1. […] abschreckendes Beispiel hat eine deutsche Bank deren Zulieferern verboten Open Source einzusetzen. So eine Vorgabe zeigt ein grobes Unverständnis moderner Softwareentwicklung. Abgesehen davon, […]

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