Shane Coughlan is an expert in communication, security and business development. His professional accomplishments include spearheading the licensing team that elevated Open Invention Network into the largest patent non-aggression community in history, establishing the leading professional network of Open Source legal experts and aligning stakeholders to launch both the first law journal and the first law book dedicated to Open Source.
Shane has extensive knowledge of Open Source governance, internal process development, supply chain management and community building. His experience includes engagement with the enterprise, embedded, mobile and automotive industries.
Today the OpenChain Project welcomes CMS to our growing partner program. The addition of this top 10 international law firm marks another significant expansion of service providers supporting the OpenChain eco-system.
“We at CMS in Germany are excited about the opportunity to work with the OpenChain Project in the future,” says Philippe Heinzke, Counsel for Intellectual Property at CMS in Germany. “Certification and quality assurance for open source software is an important issue for our clients and will continue to pose new challenges for companies and institutions in the future. OpenChain helps to deal with open source software in a legally compliant manner, strengthens trust in suppliers and customers and thus contributes to compliance in digital transformation, but also in classic product development processes.”
“Working with CMS in Germany marks another milestone for the OpenChain Project,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Such partnerships will become increasingly important as OpenChain disseminates further into the automotive, infrastructure and consumer electronics supply chain. Germany is a market of immense importance to our industry standard. We are at the beginning of a journey that will reduce complexity, cost and time-to-market for companies of all sizes in this geography.”
About CMS in Germany:
CMS is one of the leading commercial law firms in Germany. More than 600 lawyers, tax advisers and notaries advise SMEs and major corporations on all aspects of national and international commercial law. CMS Germany has offices in eight major German business locations, as well as in Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, Moscow and Shanghai.
Founded in 1999, CMS is a top 10 international law firm, based on the number of lawyers (Am Law 2018 Global 100). With 70+ offices in 40+ countries across the world, employing over 4,500 lawyers, CMS has longstanding expertise both at advising in its local jurisdictions and across borders. CMS acts for a large number of Fortune 500 companies and the FT European 500 and for the majority of the DAX 30.
CMS provides a wide range of expertise across 19 expert practice and sector areas, including Corporate/M&A, Energy, Funds, Lifesciences, TMC, Tax, Banking and Finance, Commercial, Competition & EU, Dispute Resolution, Employment & Pensions, Intellectual Property and Real Estate & Construction.
We are delighted to welcome Cognizant as the latest OpenChain Conformant Organization. This development confirms another Fortune 500 company as OpenChain Specification Conformant and represents a substantial increase in our global presence.
“It is tremendously exciting to welcome another open source user company into the heart of the OpenChain Project,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Our mission is to support such companies both in pursuing internal excellent and in streamlining open source license compliance across their supply chain. The team at Cognizant is a pleasure to work with and I firmly believe we will accomplish great things in the coming months and years.”
Learn More About Cognizant
Cognizant (Nasdaq-100: CTSH) is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, transforming clients’ business, operating and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build and run more innovative and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant is ranked 193 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. Learn how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com or follow us @Cognizant.
Learn More About OpenChain Conformant Organizations
The OpenChain Project is delighted to announce the second OpenChain Korea Work Group meeting will be held at the Samsung R&D campus on the 12th of June. Great thanks are due to Yoonhwan Jung (Samsung) and Haksung Jang (LG). This builds on the excellent first meeting held on the 23rd of January 2019. If you are interested in joining please let us know on the Korean Work Group mailing list.
The OpenChain Specification 2.0 is now in Simplified Chinese thanks to the hard work of our volunteer community. Special thanks are due to Jerry Tan, Zhang Weilin, Po-Chun Wang, Lucien Lin and Florence Ko.
“The OpenChain Project is global and we are working hard to make our resources available in many languages,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “China, as a key market, is a priority for us. The availability of our latest specification in Simplified Chinese is the first step towards making self-certification simple and quick for companies in the region. It joins our Traditional Chinese translation as an example of our commitment to building effective bridges.”
Get this translation and many more guides and documents in the OpenChain Reference Library:
The OpenChain Project today welcomes Maggie Wang as the latest participant of our Partner Program.
“Maggie has a long history of supporting Chinese companies from all market sectors engage with open source software,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Working with Maggie provides our first formal step into the Chinese market and is an indication of where we want to go next. OpenChain is run by user companies for the benefit of user companies. There is no market more important than China for open source. We are looking forward to dramatically increasing our engagement over the next 12 months.”
Learn more about our partner program
We are developing a compelling commercial partner program to support of our core mission of ensuring that any organization, anywhere can adopt OpenChain easily. The partner program operates adjacent to our free online self-certification, free reference material and free access to our specification. Our goal is to provide user companies the option of obtaining assistance from training, consultancy or tooling entities, from outside law firms and from third-party certification authorities.
The OpenChain Japan Work Group operates seven sub-groups covering topics as diverse as tooling and license information exchange. Next Tuesday, the 11th of June, the Promotion Sub-Group will meet to discuss next steps in building engagement deeper into the Japanese and global supply chain.
These meetings provide an informal and friendly space for discussion
Everyone is welcome to join any OpenChain Japan Work Group meeting or sub-group meeting at any time. You can learn more about individual meetings by visiting our dedicated Japan wiki or joining our dedicated Japanese mailing list. While the business of the work groups is held in Japanese you are welcome to ask questions in English.
Special thanks are due to Endo San from Toyota for his leadership in the Promotion Sub-Group. His work inside Toyota and with the broader Japanese open source community has been invaluable.
The OpenChain Project is delighted to welcome FOSSID as our latest participant in the partner program. We are developing a compelling commercial partner program to support of our core mission of ensuring that any organization, anywhere can adopt OpenChain easily. The partner program operates adjacent to our free online self-certification, free reference material and free access to our specification. Our goal is to provide user companies the option of obtaining assistance from training, consultancy or tooling entities, from outside law firms and from third-party certification authorities.
“The OpenChain Project has grown immensely in the last year and a half,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “This growth has occurred precisely where we can make the most difference: in the heart of key supply chains such as embedded, mobile and automotive. We are delighted to welcome FOSSID to the OpenChain Partner Program as our first tooling vender. Not only do they have deep experience in open source, but Oskar and his team have been involved in our project as observers and contributors for several years. I believe our collaboration will help more companies become OpenChain conformant more quickly. I am looking forward to next steps.”
“From the get-go, we realized that OpenChain would become a driver of great value to entire ecosystems, making open source license compliance more efficient and bringing better confidence to every layer in the supply chain”, said Oskar Swirtun, CEO, FOSSID. “Having been keen observers and contributors for many years, today we proudly announce us joining OpenChain as the first tooling vendor partner. We are excited to help companies and organizations become OpenChain conformant through our lightweight and flexible tools.”
FOSSID offers a state-of-the-art open source scanner that integrates seamlessly in your development process and detects pieces of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in your code base, from entire components to code snippets. FOSSID’s software uncovers license obligations, compliance issues, and security vulnerabilities so that you can focus on creating great products. Discover more at https://www.fossid.com.
This is a record of the OpenChain Project Work Team Call from 06-03-2019. This call saw a deep-dive from Siemens into the collaborative open source tooling for open source compliance project. This project, which is building collaboration between companies in Europe and Japan, has a targeted outcome of reference tooling for the market-at-large.
Miriam Ballhausen, Gary O’Neall and Shane Coughlan hosted a call on June 3rd 2019 to discuss the lessons learned from the preparation of the OpenChain Self-Certification Questionnaire and Web App for the release of the OpenChain Specification 2.0. The full recording of the call is available on YouTube. Comments, suggestions and assistance in making our self-certification process better are always welcome.
The OpenChain Project has active bi-weekly calls and a central mailing list that provide the “nuts and bolts” of our community activity. These are joined by various releases of documents and announcements of OpenChain-related events throughout each month. We collect key developments in this newsletter once a month.
Introduction
Reminder: Companies Can Upgrade OpenChain Conformance to 2.0
Companies currently OpenChain 1.1 or 1.2 Conformant can easily check and upgrade their conformance status to 2.0 using our free online questionnaire. Upgrading is purely optional for existing conformant organizations. However, it is a smooth transition from OpenChain 1.2 and can be a great way to send a positive message to your suppliers and customers.
Access the Online Self-Certification Questionnaire
The OpenChain Project is delighted to announce that the latest version of our specification for quality open source compliance programs is available in German. This document can be used by any organization to review and improve their internal processes.
“The OpenChain Project is expanding globally through adoption of our specification, our reference materials and use of our free self-certification process,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “The OpenChain Specification is at the heart of what we do. This document outlines the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program and can be used by any organization in any market as a “health check” and basis for refinement. The availability of our latest specification in German is another milestone in the maturity of the project.”
This translation is the result of collaboration from Catharina Maracke, Stefan Thanheiser, Stefanie Pors, Anke Thanheiser, Jan Thielscher, Miriam Ballhausen and Daniel Wulle. Big thanks are due to Catharina Maracke for coordinating the process.
Reminder: OpenChain Conformance Badges are just a few questions away
One of the most common questions asked around the OpenChain Project is “how do I get an OpenChain badge for my conformance program and the products that go through it?”
We keep this simple. Any company in any market sector can use our free OpenChain Project self-certification questionnaire. This questionnaire has also proven useful for internal, private “health checks” to assess the current status of open source compliance programs. We are delighted to support both use cases.
OpenChain Welcomes Hella Aglaia to the Community of Conformance
The OpenChain Project is delighted to welcome Hella Aglaia to our community of conformance.
“OpenChain is becoming increasingly popular in the automotive industry,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “We have member companies like Toyota, Hitachi and Bosch directly supporting the growth of OpenChain adoption, and we have extensive engagement throughout our community from companies like Panasonic, Denso Ten and Scania. We are extremely happy to welcome HELLA Aglaia to our community of conformance and – more generally – to the wider OpenChain eco-system of collaboration.”
In their own words, HELLA Aglaia Mobile Vision GmbH is a full subsidiary of HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA and one of the leading global developers of intelligent visual sensor systems.
We specialize in customized embedded software solutions for driver assistance systems with multi-functional cameras. Our portfolio also includes the development of software for energy management systems as well as testing solutions for environment sensor systems (camera/radar) and associated products and services. Another field of expertise covers the development and distribution of people-counting devices based on integrated image processing. Our products are suitable for the integration in public transport vehicles as well as for stationary use (e.g. retail locations, airports, stations).
HELLA Aglaia was founded in 1998 and headquartered in Berlin.
OpenChain Welcomes {metæffekt} as our Latest Partner
The OpenChain Project is delighted to welcome {metæffekt} as the latest OpenChain Partner. Our partner program helps any organization, anywhere adopt OpenChain easily. It operates adjacent to our free online self-certification to allow user companies to choose to get help with training, processes, legal matters or third-party certification. You can learn more about our partner program on this dedicated page.
“Welcoming metaeffekt fits neatly in this moment of evolution for our project,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “It simultaneously expands our geographical coverage in Germany and increases our breadth of expertise around tooling automation. These two topics are behind recent growth and activity in OpenChain. We expect to see increasing engagement in the German automotive sector beyond our recent addition of Hella Aglaia to the community of conformance. We also have growing interest in open source tooling for open source compliance, and a growing collaboration between Siemens, Bosch, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Hitachi and others in this area. I believe great things are to come from our expanded relationship with Karsten and the rest of his team at metaeffekt.”
About {metæffekt}
{metæffekt} is a consultancy company located in Heidelberg, Germany providing services in the context of Software Architecture and Continuous Software Development with a very strong, vendor-neutral devotion to automation. One core vision of {metæffekt} is to automate the creation of consistent, comprehensive, high-quality release documentation in compliance to legal boundary condition, regulatory requirements, contract/license terms, and individual company policies. {metæffekt} does not provide any legal advice but connects with partners in a strong network of other disciplines to cover all required aspects. http://www.metaeffekt.com/
OpenChain @ Events
OpenChain Featured at CC Global Summit 2019
The OpenChain Project was featured by Haggen So at the Creative Commons Global Summit 2019. He used the project as an example of “Made with Creative Commons” to show how businesses are using open licensing to share information and improve their competitiveness.
The OpenChain Project uses CC-0 licensing for all its reference material. It uses the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0) license for our specification.
OpenChain at the Asian Legal Network, Shanghai
The OpenChain Project took center stage at the Asian Legal Network study dinner in Shanghai on the 17th of May. This event was focused on the Chinese financial sector with representatives from companies such as Union Pay and AliPay.
The Asian Legal Network events are kindly sponsored by Open Invention Network and provide an opportunity for stakeholders across Asia to network, share information and build new avenues of collaboration.
OpenChain joins Toyota, OIN and Unified Patents on an American Intellectual Property Law Association Webinar
The OpenChain Project is recording an American Intellectual Property Law Association webinar alongside Toyota, OIN and Unified Patents this evening in Tokyo. The core focus of the event will be on open source and defensive patent strategies, and OpenChain’s coverage of adjacent copyright concerns will provide broader context for viewers.
The webinar is provisionally scheduled to air in June as part of the AIPLA regular schedule.
Copyright 2019 The Linux Foundation. This newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0). Please feel free to share it onwards! OpenChain is a trademark of The Linux Foundation. It may be used according to The Linux Foundation Trademark Policy and the OpenChain Terms of Use. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
