and people come to rely on that free licensing
there was no reason to believe that the open source
licensing was anything but company-sanctioned
What both these things seem to rely on, is the amount of time that has passed since the original open sourcing. It seems highly unlikely that they only discovered the open sourcing just now. If they had undertaken this action immediately after discovering the open sourcing, there would be no doubt that it wasn't company sanctioned and no-one would have come to rely on it.
I wouldn't find it terribly unlikely that non-technical managerial-level people within the company were unaware that certain code had been open sourced. I know that unless I make an effort to let other departments know about it, that no one at my company would have any idea we created, or even used, open-source code.
Comments
I wouldn't find it terribly unlikely that non-technical managerial-level people within the company were unaware that certain code had been open sourced. I know that unless I make an effort to let other departments know about it, that no one at my company would have any idea we created, or even used, open-source code.
That's a very difficult question of fact, and one which I think could easily be a central if this went to trial.