Matt Asay, the VP of Business Development of Alfresco, writes in his blog at CNET about his observations that European and North American customers view licensing differently. He finds that, "generally speaking, our European customers want our software under an open-source license (GPLv2)" whereas North Americans "want the benefits of open source without the obligations and perceived risk".
Asay believes that this is because of differences in the adoption of FOSS. Alfresco has been widely adopted by governments throughout Europe who support the ideals of FOSS whereas adoption in North America is mainly driven by enterprises "seeking to lower costs and maximize innovation".
His conclusions? "If you're hoping to do business in Europe and North America, you need to be prepared for the differing approaches to open-source licensing, contracts, indemnification", etc.
Complete Story: http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9835653-16.html
Differences between European and US adoption of FOSS
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