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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 @ NLnet Supply Chain Webinars

By News

NLnet is hosting a series of webinars on Open Software Supply Chain management.

The first episode with Armijn Hemel took place on April 6th, with the topic of Open Source in (Consumer) Electronics Supply Chains:

Next up was Philippe Ombredanne (a.o. https://aboutcode.org), who gave a talk on April 13th 2023 on automated tooling to understand dependencies, handle vulnerabilities in an open and transparent manner:

Forthcoming webinars in the series are:

Thursday May 4th 2023 // 13.00 – 14.30 CEST (Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome)

 – Speakers: Carlo Piana & Alberto Pianon.
 – Topic: The importance of a Software Bill of Materials in light of the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act and product liability legislation in Europe.
 – More info:

Thursday May 11th 2023 // 13.00 – 14.30 CEST (Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome)

 – Speaker: Shane Martin Coughlan
 – Topic: ISO standards and certification. (This talk was previously scheduled for April 27).
 – More info:

About These Webinars (from NLnet)

As the dependency of society on technology continues to increase in every possible direction, it is of the utmost importance to understand the dynamic life cycle of the free and open source building blocks that form the basis of pretty much all technology we use today – and how these can be kept safe and available.

Not only do we need to improve our understanding of how and where software is developed, maintained, built and deprecated at macro scale – but we also need to create mechanisms to ensure that building blocks are kept up to date, that different versions don’t collide, FOSS packages from public repositories have not “bit-rotted” or even worse: have been tampered with by malicious actors as part of a “supply chain attack”. There has been an increasing attention to the fact that with software “eating the world”, a healthy and robust software ecosystem should be a key societal (and thus political) priority. But at the same time, we should do so with full understanding of the highly specific nature of “digital commons” – as the controversy surrounding the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act clearly proves.

In this series of webinars by leading experts such as Armijn Hemel (Tjaldur), Shane Coughlan (OpenChain), Carlo Piana (OSI), Alberto Pianon (Eclipse Compliance Toolchain Project Lead) and Philippe Ombredanne (AboutCode) we look at software supply chains from different angles. What do modern electronics supply chains look like, how is provenance handled – and how *should* it be handled? What mechanisms do we have to verify the integrity of deployed code packages and detect abnormal code changes that may be signs of malicious modifications and possible attacks? Where do “Software Bill of Materials” come into play? And what is being done, and perhaps should be done from a legislative and governance point of view?

The entire webinar series is available free of charge, and will allow you a deep dive into the hidden world behind the software and hardware we use – and will help you get a clear understanding of how open source supply chains work, and a grasp of what the policy challenges are.

Learn More About The Forthcoming OpenChain Webinar:

OpenChain @ Legal and Licensing Workshop 2023 – Gothenburg, Sweden – 2023-04-21

By News

The OpenChain Project was featured at the FSFE Legal and Licensing Workshop 2023 held in Gothenburg, Sweden during April. This annual event brings together legal experts from around the world to talk about open source and open-related legal matters.

Check Out Our Slides

Learn More On The Official Website:

OpenChain @ 2nd China Automotive Cyber Security and Data Security Conference 2023

By News

The OpenChain Project has been featured at the 2nd China Automotive Cyber Security and Data Security Conference 2023 in a talk delivered by Zhang JunXia of CAICT. This is part of our long-running collaboration to help companies of all sizes in the Chinese market to adopt and use ISO/IEC 5230, the international standard for open source license compliance.

Learn More On The Official Website:

LG Electronics Announces OpenChain ISO/IEC DIS 18974 Conformant Program

By Featured, News

LG Electronics (LG) now has an OpenChain Security Assurance Specification 1.1 (ISO/IEC DIS 18974) conformant program. This standard defines the key requirements of a quality open source security assurance program, and helps to both reduce errors and increase efficiency across the global supply chain. This builds on their previous adoption of ISO/IEC 5230, the International Standard for open source license compliance.

“LG Electronics has a long history in open source and a well-known open source office,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their governance contributions like the FOSSLight tooling to help other companies has been an inspiration in South Korea and beyond. The conformance announcement today comes from the LG Cybersecurity Governance Team and underscores a company-wide commitment to excellence. As LG joins BlackBerry and Interneuron in driving the future of open source security assurance, we both welcome this announcement, and look forward to close collaboration in the future.”

Adoption of ISO/IEC DIS 18974 was driven by the LG Cybersecurity Governance Team. They are responsible for:

  • Establishing LG’s software development process (LG-SDL: Secure Development Lifecycle) to develop secure software for all LG Electronics products
  • Reflecting the latest Global Standards (ETSI, ENISA, NIST, etc.) and adapting them for the LG development ecosystem
  • Operating LG VulDOC (Vulnerability Detection Of Code) DevSecOps to Identify and resolve potential security vulnerabilities through various software verification methods 
  • Managing the LG Product Security Response Team (PSRT) to minimize security damage to our customers through authentic communication with security registrants and external stakeholders
  • Managing Third-Party developed software supply chain risk management

About LG Electronics

LG Electronics is a global innovator in technology and consumer electronics with a presence in almost every country and an international workforce of more than 74,000. LG’s four companies – Home Appliance & Air Solution, Home Entertainment, Vehicle component Solutions and Business Solutions – combined for global revenue of over KRW 80 trillion in 2022. LG is a leading manufacturer of consumer and commercial products ranging from TVs, home appliances, air solutions, monitors, service robots, automotive components and its premium LG SIGNATURE and intelligent LG ThinQ brands are familiar names world over.

About the OpenChain Project

The OpenChain Project maintains the International Standard for open source license compliance and the de-facto standard for open source security assurance. These allow companies of all sizes and in all sectors to adopt the key requirements of quality open source compliance or security assurance programs. They are open standards. All parties are welcome to engage with our community, to share their knowledge, and to contribute to the future of our standards.

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 industry 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.

ByteDance Announces OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 Conformant Program

By Featured, News

ByteDance, a leading social media company, and the innovator behind TikTok, has announced an OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 conformant program. Their adoption of the international standard for open source license compliance underlines their commitment to engagement and excellence around open source projects, platforms and solutions.

“We are delighted to welcome ByteDance to the OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 community of conformance,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their team has created social networks with stunning speed of scaling in Douyin (抖音) and TikTok. This innovation has been powered by open source, and their work around building an Open Source Program Office (OSPO), communicating their work, and now using international standards speaks to a bright future. We are looking forward to next steps in our collaboration.”

Read Their Full Announcement In Simplified Chinese

ByteDance Website

About ByteDance

ByteDance was founded in 2012 by a team led by Yiming Zhang and Rubo Liang, who saw opportunities in the then-nascent mobile internet market, and aspired to build platforms that could enrich people’s lives. The company launched Toutiao, one of its flagship products, in August 2012. It followed that success with the launch of Douyin in September 2016. Approximately a year later, ByteDance accelerated globalization with the launch of its global short video product, TikTok. It quickly took off in markets like Southeast Asia, signaling a new opportunity for the company. ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in November 2017 and subsequently merged it with TikTok. Today, the TikTok platform, which is available outside of China, has become the leading destination for short-form mobile videos worldwide.

In support of its mission to Inspire Creativity and Enrich Life, ByteDance has made it easy and fun for people to connect with, create and consume content. People are also able to discover and transact with a suite of more than a dozen products and services such as TikTok, CapCut, TikTok Shop, Lark, Pico and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, as well as products and services specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, Fanqie, Xigua, Feishu and Douyin E-commerce.

ByteDance has over 150,000 employees based out of nearly 120 cities globally, including Austin, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Dubai, Dublin, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore, and Tokyo.

About the OpenChain Project

The OpenChain Project maintains the International Standard for open source license compliance and the de-facto standard for open source security assurance. These allow companies of all sizes and in all sectors to adopt the key requirements of quality open source compliance or security assurance programs. They are open standards. All parties are welcome to engage with our community, to share their knowledge, and to contribute to the future of our standards.

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 industry 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 Education Work Group – 2023-04-13

By News

We had a really busy and productive OpenChain Education Work Group call last week. The focus was on our Wikipedia page and on a new, smart and easy way to recreate flowcharts and other material in MarkDown.

Wikipedia Page (changes recorded):

MarkDown:

Video

Slides

GPLv2 Compliance Flowcharts Updated

By News

The OpenChain Project GPLv2 Compliance Flowcharts have been updated. Originally published in the book Practical GPL Compliance, these flowcharts are intended to help address some common compliance workflows. Thanks to Jacob Wilson, they have been moved into MarkDown format, and can now be easily added to websites, elearning platforms and more.

Example: Flowchart #0 – How Do I Distribute

You can access and download these flowcharts in our Reference Library. Like the rest of our material, they are released under CC-0 licensing.

Get The Flowcharts Now

The Tool We Used

These flowcharts were created using the Mermaid Live Editor.

Monthly Meeting North America and Europe 2023-04-04

By News

This time around we focused on editing the OpenChain license compliance specification. This is the potential future update of ISO/IEC 5230. Helio lead the discussion with support from Chris as co-chairs.

We covered two issues during the call:

Check out the full recording and our slides below. On the next call (3rd Tuesday, North America and Asia) we will cover some of the open issues around the potential future update of the OpenChain security specification (ISO/IEC DIS 18974).

Telco Work Group – Morning and Afternoon – 2023-04-06

By News

Summary of Meetings from the Chair (Marc-Etienne)

Meeting 2023-04-06 morning

Attendees:

  • Stephen Kilbane, Analog Devices Inc.
  • Nikola Babadzhanov, Bosch
  • Anton Bashlykov, MBition
  • Marc-Etienne Vargenau, Nokia

We reviewed the pull requests and merged them:

  • added the definition of “SBOM Type” from CISA and used it in section 3.7 “SBOM Build information”
  • updated section “3.13 SBOM Verification”, added recommendation to provide a digital signature of the SBOM
  • updated section 3.5.2, added rationale for the tag:value format, indicating it is the most human-readable format
  • updated several “Verification and reference material” and “Rationale” sections
  • added “5. References” section, providing references for SPDX, OpenChain and “NTIA minimum elements”

Meeting 2023-04-06 afternoon

Attendees:

  • Alfred Strauch, SmartTalk Security Inc.
  • Chris
  • Marc-Etienne Vargenau, Nokia

We review the pull requests that were merged in the morning meeting.

Alfred points out the use case of a software that has its name changed and asks how this should be handled.

Alfred suggests that I join the SBOM Forum. He will introduce me to Tom Alrich. The forum groups several companies including Red Hat, Oracle, Microsoft and companies producing medical devices. One of the creators of CycloneDX is a member.

Outcome

The draft document is now complete. Please review it and share you comments and suggestions in the mailing list or on GitHub by creating issues or pull requests.

Morning Meeting Recording

Afternoon Meeting Recording