Using open source code in company projects without following its open source license, even if it has not been discovered for the time being, still has many risks and responsibilities. Here are some key points for your reference: 1. **Legal Liability and Risks**: - **Copyright Infringement**: Most open source licenses are based on copyright law, and if the license provisions are not followed, it may constitute copyright infringement. This may lead to legal proceedings, compensation for losses, or even forced to stop using the relevant code. - **Financial Loss**: If discovered, the company may need to bear fines, compensation, and the cost of fixing violations, all of which may have an adverse impact on the company's financial situation. 2. **Ethics and Reputation**: - **Integrity Issues**: Failure to comply with open source licenses reflects a lack of respect for developers and the open source community, which may damage the company's moral image. - **Damaged Reputation**: Once violations are made public, it may affect the trust of customers, partners, and potential investors in the company, and thus affect business development. 3. **Impact on the Open Source Community**: - **Reduced Community Support**: Open source projects rely on community support and contributions. Violations may lead to community dissatisfaction with the company, thereby reducing the possibility of future cooperation. - **Restrictions on Future Use**: Some open source licenses stipulate that violating the terms may result in the loss of use rights, restricting the company's future use of these codes in projects. 4. **Necessity of proactive correction**: - **Risk reduction**: Proactively correcting violations (such as following the license, removing unauthorized code, or obtaining necessary authorizations) can reduce potential legal and financial risks. - **Building a good image**: Showing respect for the open source community and the law helps to enhance the company's social responsibility and good image. - **Preventing future problems**: By establishing a compliance process and license management system, similar problems can be avoided and the company can comply with relevant regulations when using open source code. 5. **Recommended action steps**: - **Internal review**: Conduct a comprehensive review of all open source code and its licenses used in the project to confirm whether there is any non-compliant use. - **Legal consultation**: Seek professional legal advice to understand specific legal responsibilities and countermeasures. - **Communicate with the open source community**: Communicate with the maintainers or community of the open source project when necessary to explain the situation and seek solutions. - **Establishing a compliance process**: Develop and implement an open source license compliance policy, train team members, and ensure that the relevant license terms are strictly followed when using open source code in the future. In summary, even if the violation has not yet been discovered, proactively admitting and correcting the mistake will not only help reduce potential legal and financial risks, but also enhance the company's ethical image and reputation and promote good relations with the open source community. It is recommended to take action as soon as possible to ensure that all open source code is used in accordance with its license requirements.