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Shane Coughlan

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.

OpenChain Welcomes Ura Design

By News

OpenChain Welcomes Ura Design

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, July 12, 2017 — The OpenChain Project is proud to welcome Ura Design to the community of OpenChain Conformant organizations.

“Ura Design is a company that helps provide design solutions for open source projects including Mozilla and Tor,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Emerging from the Open Source Design community, they have long been a pioneer in supporting ideas that can make a lasting difference. Today they have placed their support behind OpenChain for simple, pragmatic reasons.”

“We are working on GPL software which allows projects to host their branding and visual assets online and allows others to download and embed these assets in any format,” says Elio Qoshi, Founder of Ura Design. “Joining OpenChain underlines our commitment to having great governance behind the code.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent.

The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements.

The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

Organizations of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to complete our free Online Self-Certification Questionnaire, and to join our community of trust.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

OpenChain Receives Markdown Contribution

By News

OpenChain Receives Markdown Contribution

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, July 11, 2017 — The OpenChain Project has received a contribution of the OpenChain Specification in Markdown format from Thomas Steenbergen. This contribution, hosted on GitHub, allows us to explore options for greater flexibility in future development and delivery of our industry standard. The document can be found here: https://github.com/tsteenbe/openchain-spec

“OpenChain is made up of an extraordinary community of individuals and companies united by a single mission,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “We want to make engagement with open source as efficient and as useful as possible. Making our material available in more formats is one aspect of this. Thomas has provided our Specification Work Team with an invaluable resource to help guide future discussions.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

OpenChain Sees Increased Adoption By Knowledge Providers

By News

OpenChain Sees Increased Adoption By Knowledge Providers

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, July 11, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was recently informed that our curriculum is being used by Source Code Control Limited as the foundation to deliver open source training and consultancy in the United Kingdom. Their most recent OpenChain-related activity was the delivery of a course entitled ‘Getting it Right with Open Source Software Licensing‘ through TechUK. Source Code Control joins Moorcrofts Corporate Law in providing education that incorporates OpenChain Curriculum material for the British market.

“OpenChain is designed to solve real-world issues related to open source compliance in the supply chain,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “It supports and relies on the development of a healthy community of adopters and service providers. We are encouraged to see Source Code Control’s work and we hope to collaborate more deeply in the near future.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

OpenChain Adds Social Network Appointments

By News

OpenChain Adds Social Network Appointments

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, July 10, 2017 — The OpenChain Project today added the ability to book appointments to talk about the project, the specification it produces or to get help with completing our self-certification questionnaire.

“OpenChain is a project that welcomes every company big or small from anywhere in the world,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Making it easy to talk about the project or to get help with joining our community is vital. Adding the ability to book appointments with OpenChain experts via social networks is small step to support this. Just go to our Facebook page and click the “Request Time” button to get started.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

Source Auditor is the latest OpenChain Conformant Company

By News

Source Auditor is the latest OpenChain Conformant Company

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, June 29, 2017 — The OpenChain Project today welcomes Source Auditor to our list of OpenChain Specification Conformant Companies.

“We believe OpenChain is an important initiative helping to spread open source compliance practices across the worldwide supply chain, and our customers will benefit greatly from applying these best practices in their own operations,” said Gary O’Neall, co-founder at Source Auditor. “Having provided software and services for open source compliance over the past 10 years as well as multiple contributions to OpenChain, Source Auditor is pleased to announce our OpenChain compliance.”

“I am delighted to welcome Source Auditor to our expanding community of OpenChain Conformant organizations,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “The concept of OpenChain Conformance is simple and powerful: it indicates that an organization has processes for addressing inbound and
outbound open source software from the perspective of license compliance. A key value is OpenChain’s applicability to organizations both large and small. We do not dictate specific processes or specific best practices, but simply that such artifacts exist, allowing companies of all sizes to select the solutions that work best for their market and their context.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

OpenChain Announces Japanese Onboarding Material

By News

OpenChain Announces Japanese Onboarding Material

TOKYO, Japan, June 29, 2017 — The Japanese translation team for the OpenChain Project has released translated versions of our Onboarding Handouts and Slides. This material acts as an “Executive Summary” to help companies quickly understand and engage with the OpenChain Project.

“We owe huge thanks to our Japanese volunteer community,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Takashi Kunai and his team -Takashi Egawa (NEC), Masao Taniguchi (NEC), Hiroyuki Fukuchi (Sony), Nobuo Imada (Hitachi) and Mieko Sato (Linux Foundation) – have done exceptional work in sharing the OpenChain Project beyond the English-speaking audience. They drove the first official translation of the OpenChain Specification in Japanese and today marks another milestone in bringing the benefit of OpenChain to a wider audience.” Find this guide and many more documents in the OpenChain Reference Library.

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

OpenChain Announces New Curriculum Chair

By News

OpenChain Announces New Curriculum Chair

Alexios, Curriculum Chair

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, June 28, 2017 — Today the OpenChain Project is delighted to formally welcome Alexios Zavras as the new Curriculum Work Team Chair. He will work alongside Mark Gisi (Specification Chair) and Miriam Ballhausen (Conformance Chair) to refine and expand our support of open source compliance in the supply chain.

“The OpenChain Project is built from and depends on contributions from an excellent volunteer community,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Each of our work teams is maintained by a community-selected contributor from among our diverse stakeholders. I felt it was important to continue this approach after my appointment as Program Manager in late March. It is with great pleasure that I welcome Alexios, a key contributor to the curriculum, to become my successor as chair.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

OpenChain Newsletter #2

By Monthly Newsletter


Newsletter #2, June 2017

Welcome to the second OpenChain newsletter! This is the heartbeat for what’s hot in The OpenChain Project right now, what’s coming next, and how you engage. Comments, suggestions and contributions are always welcome at coughlan@linux.com!

Shane Coughlan
OpenChain Program Manager

OpenChain Onboarding Material Launch

On the 25th of May we announced that OpenChain was producing onboarding material designed to help companies of all sizes understand and engage with our mission of making Open Source compliance simple, effective and efficient throughout the supply chain. By the 31st  of May our volunteer team had completed review and we went live with handouts and slides. These are an executive summary that explains the who, what, where, when and how of OpenChain, our specification, our curriculum and our free online self-certification. The official announcement is here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/05/31/openchain-project-releases-translations-and-onboarding-packages

Get the onboarding handout in PDF format here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2017/05/openchain-onboarding-handout-1.0.pdf

Get the onboarding slides in PDF format here:https://www.openchainproject.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2017/05/openchain-onboarding-slides-1.0.pdf

OpenChain Community Growth

The OpenChain community has expanded recently with self-certification by LG Electronics and NextCloud GmbH. These developments help to underline our strategy of being equally suitable for big and small companies across the global supply chain:

“OpenChain Conformance is designed for companies of all sizes that deal with open source software,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “NextCloud is a high profile, high growth startup that adheres to the same overarching compliance processes as multinationals. It is a clear example of why OpenChain Conformance is the correct approach to establishing an industry standard for open source compliance in the supply chain.”
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/06/06/nextcloud

OpenChain @ Events

OpenChain was featured at a special event held by BKL law offices in Seoul on the 30th of May:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/05/30/special-seminar-to-discuss-the-openchain-project-in-seoul

It was also explained by Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager, at Open Compliance Summit Japan on the 31st of May:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/05/31/exploring-topical-issues-at-open-compliance-summit-japan

And it will feature as a central topic of discussion at the Asian Legal Network event hosted by Open Invention Network and DLA Piper on the 16th of June:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/06/15/openchain-at-the-asian-legal-network

OpenChain Expands Translation Effort

On the 31st of May we also announced that translations were a first-class citizen in the OpenChain Project and launched a dedicated page to host the activities of our diverse volunteer teams:
https://www.openchainproject.org/translations

We currently have official translations in Japanese and Portuguese, unofficial translations in Korean, and expect further announcements in the near future. Kudos to everyone involved!

OpenChain Explained

We have received quite a lot of media interest around the launch of the OpenChain Specification 1.1. Linux Weekly News provided especially deep coverage and – since the 18th of May – their material has been freely available on the internet.

Check out LWN’s overview of OpenChain:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/05/18/openchain-featured-in-linux-weekly-news

Check out LWN’s deep-dive on the OpenChain Specification 1.1:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2017/05/18/openchain-specification-1-1-deep-dive-in-linux-weekly-news

What’s Next?

OpenChain’s community of contributors is continuing to grow. Work has begun on the next version of our Specification, Conformance service and Curriculum. These are all scheduled for potential release in 2018. Meanwhile, our immediate focus remains on adoption of the existing material.

In the near term you can expect a simple, effective way for OpenChain adopters to advertise OpenChain Conformance and expanded onboarding materials. You can also expect to hear about a new pilot partner program to build a commercial eco-system to support our community. Learn more in the next newsletter or on the OpenChain mailing list: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/openchain

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2017 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.

Download as a PDF

OpenChain Receives Checklist Contribution

By News

OpenChain Receives Checklist Contribution

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, June 22, 2017 — On the 14th of June the OpenChain Project received a contribution of educational flowcharts from Armijn Hemel and Shane Coughlan’s publication ‘Practical GPL Compliance.’ Today the OpenChain Project announced that it has received a contribution of additional educational checklists and supplementary commentary from the same book. All of this material is being made available under a CC-0 license.

“The educational material made available over the last two weeks can be applied to process management, best practices and training around open source compliance,” says Shane Coughlan. “It is a natural fit with the OpenChain Project’s onboarding and curriculum activities and will be considered for inclusion in future releases. Meanwhile, due to the nature of the CC-0 license it is released under, anyone can use, study, share and improve this material for any purpose. By undertaking these releases we hope to inspire further engagement and collaboration from diverse stakeholders in the eco-system.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

OpenChain at LinuxCon China – The Talk and Slides

By News

OpenChain at LinuxCon China – The Talk and Slides

BEIJING, China (LinuxCon China) June 22, 2017 — Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager, introduced the OpenChain Project from a business perspective and launched the OpenChain Conformance logo at LinuxCon China 2017 on the 20th of June.

“I am delighted to announce that we are making my slides, a video of the “big picture” section of my talk and the complete audio available today,” says Shane Coughlan. “This is part of our ongoing commitment to communicate the purpose of OpenChain Project, to make it easy to share OpenChain with interest parties, and to encourage greater engagement.”

The Slides

The “Big Picture” Video

The Full Speech Audio

OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The project builds trust in open source by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent. The OpenChain Specification defines a core set of requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy. The OpenChain Curriculum provides the educational foundation for open source processes and solutions, whilst meeting a key requirement of the OpenChain Specification. OpenChain Conformance allows organizations to display their adherence to these requirements. The result is that open source license compliance becomes more predictable, understandable and efficient for participants of the software supply chain.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.