Software licenses in cloud platforms
When an enterprise uses software, it needs to purchase licenses for its usage. That goes for both proprietary and open source software. The main difference between these two categories is that open source software does allow modifications and changes in the software, as long as the changes are contributed to the software's development as a whole. Proprietary software is typically closed source, that is, the source code may not be modified.
As with a lot of licenses, this can become quite complicated. If a product that a company uses is not sufficiently licensed, the company can be forced to pay fines along with the license fees it should actually have paid from the start. Using non-licensed software is illegal. That doesn't change when we're moving environments to the cloud.
How do you know when a software product is properly licensed? There are just a few types of software licenses—with a lot of variations—but...
