Waugh said that's the context in which he likes to see why software licences are, or are not important.

"If you use the Internet you are using free software and almost 100 percent of that infrastructural free software that's all around the place is BSD licensed," he said.

"The things that tell you the names of Web sites, a lot of the e-mail stuff it's all BSD."

So if organizations want to create a piece of infrastructure that everyone will use regardless of their perspective on software development or business goals, Waugh recommends choosing a BSD-style licence, which allows the code to be embedded in other products without obligation.

"The Internet naming service called Bind is used by absolutely everyone - you'll find it in Microsoft code, open source code, you'll find it everywhere," he said.