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.
Philippe Ombredanne from nexB will lead a technical deep dive into VulnTotal on the 7th of February at 09:00 CET (08:00 UTC). Join us in our usual room here:
This deep dive is about an aspect of the AboutCode Project, with VulnerableCode providing tools to collect, aggregate and refine software vulnerability information from more than 20 sources and tools to quickly create new “importers”. VulnTotal is something that came out of Google Summer of Code 2022:
VulnTotal: Cross-validate vulnerability coverage of VulnerableCode (Keshav Priyadarshi)
VulnerableCode is a unique project that collates and cross-references FOSS vulnerability data from multiple sources. Inspired by the VirusTotal multi-scanner virus scanning service, the VulnTotal project will cross-validate the vulnerability coverage of VulnerableCode against other publicly available vulnerability check tools and databases. For instance, a package may be reported as vulnerable by one tool or database but not by another. We can gradually work with these tool providers to keep each other apprised about newly discovered vulnerabilities, making FOSS more secure.
From InnerSource Commons: In this session about SBOMs and InnerSource we will look at applying open source industry best practices and standards such as ISO 5230 OpenChain, ISO 5962 SPDX and CycloneDX to InnerSource Programs.
Bitsea, a service provider specialized in software auditing and based in Germany, today announces support for the OpenChain Security Assurance Specification 1.1. They can help companies understand and adopt this standard for open source security in Germany and beyond. As a sister standard to OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 – the international standard for open source license compliance – the OpenChain Security Assurance Specification 1.1 offers the same type of support for building a quality security assurance program.
“For over 10 years Bitsea has provided services to help organizations identifying hidden risks in software systems and managing their open source software supply chain,” says Dr. Andreas Kotulla, Founder and CEO of Bitsea. “Our services guide organizations to adopt and conform to both ISO 5230 OpenChain and OpenChain Security Assurance.”
“Bitsea has long been a provider of excellent reputation in the open source area,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their new services to support adoption of the OpenChain Security Assurance Specification 1.1 are a timely and useful contribution to the community in Germany and beyond. Open source security is a vital part of the global supply chain, and solid process management is key to addressing the ongoing challenges.”
About Bitsea
Big software systems are like a wild wide ocean of bits – our passion is to analyse and visualize software structure. We are keen to help our customers how to stabilize and optimize their systems. We assess software. We analyze, evaluate and optimize your development processes, software architecture and software design. We perform the technical due diligence for company takeovers. We reduce the economic risk by assessing open source components and ensure license compliance.
Our references include well-known Fortune 500 companies in communications, automotive, logistics, retail and aerospace industries. Highest standard for information security: We are VDA/ISA Tisax-certified since 2020. All data of our customers remain in Germany or, if required, in the territory of our customers. We are involved in the Bitkom Open Source working group. Bitsea is part of the OpenChain Community. We guarantee strictly confidential consulting in the context of technical due diligence for M&A activities.
The OpenChain Project has an extensive global community that involves thousands of companies collaborating to make the supply chain quicker, more effective and more efficient. We work together to create trust between entities around open source. Our job is to increase trust in the open source supply chain. We do this by maintaining ISO/IEC 5230:2020, the International Standard for open source license compliance, and our Security Assurance Reference Specification. We also have a large global community where knowledge is shared to reduce friction and increase efficiency across all aspects of open source process management.
The Linux Foundation is the world’s largest non-profit connecting global technical experts, and providing them with a neutral and trusted platform to develop open source projects. Founded in 2000 as the home of the Linux Kernel, the Linux Foundation has grown to host hundreds of open source projects, with a community spanning 2,950+ members, 540,000+ contributing developers, and 19,000+ contributing companies.
AboutCode is holding a one day workshop for open source compliance tooling developers and users on the fringe of FOSDEM 2023. You probably know Philippe Ombredanne from ScanCode, who is a key driver behind this. It takes place Friday, February 3, 2023, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (UTC+01:00).
Event structure as per their website:
Which tools is this about? FOSS tools for software provenance detection tools, license detection and compliance tools, code scanning tools, package dependency analysis tools, container analysis tools, SBOM creation and consumption tools, and license or vulnerability databases
Basically all the tools you need to figure out which FOSS code you use, where it is from, what is its license, how to comply with the license, and whether it contains vulnerable code. We organized this workshop last in 2020 (pre-COVID) and there were developers from the ORT, ScanCode, ClearlyDefined, FOSSology, Tern, VulnerableCode, SW360, DoubleOpen and OpenChain projects, and users from the finest organizations, technology and industrial companies worldwide. Whether you are a developer or user interested in the Software Supply Chain and SBOMs, a FOSS license-savvy lawyer, a compliance or security analyst, or an OSPO member: you will be warmly welcomed.
The day will be split in two:
• In the morning, the focus is on tool developers: they will announce and share their plans and we will discuss opportunities for collaboration, sharing and joint projects.
• In the afternoon, the focus is on tool users: they will share their concerns, problems and requirements and we will discuss opportunities for collaboration and address these in the represented projects.
The Eventbrite booking form for the next OpenChain UK Workgroup meeting, taking place on 26th January 2023 is now live.
Date: 26th January 2023
Time: 15:00 – 17:00 UTC
Venue: Both virtual and physical. You can select your preference on the booking form.
The physical meeting will take place at the offices of Analog Devices in Hayes, West London (near Heathrow) at the Old Vinyl Factory, 5 Pressing Lane, Hayes UB3 1EP.
Many thanks to Steve Kilbane for making the space available for us at his company’s offices.
To confirm your place either in person or virtually so that we can guage numbers, please complete the Eventbrite booking form.
The next OpenChain Webinar will feature OSSelot, an open source curation database recently launched by OSADL in Germany. This project features one of the most requested features around open source automation for open source compliance: an open, public database supporting SBOM (via SPDX ISO/IEC 5962) for common software packages. This could be a game-changer.
Learn more at 09:00 CET (08:00 UTC) on the 24th of January.
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Nathan kicked off the new cycle of the Education Work Group activities at the end of the year. Here, slightly late, is our recording of that excellent one hour session.
Our first monthly meeting of the year contained some great discussion about the spec with oversight by Co-Chair Helio (we worked on issues as usual) and Nathan also set the tone for future plans around the Education Work Group. It was a relatively small group due to the new year vacation ending unevenly around the world, but some substantive material was covered.
Please note that we also had a ton of interesting news to cover. Check out the slides for the details and the links to each item.
Interneuron, a UK-based service provider to the British National Health Service (NHS), is the first company to formally announce an OpenChain Security Assurance Specification conformant program. This continues their history of engagement with open source standards – including previous adoption of OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230, the International Standard for open source license compliance.
“We have worked with Interneuron from when they were a start-up,” says Martin Callinan, Director at Source Code Control Limited. “From the outset we implemented a secure by design approach to the management of open source components used in their software development. It is hugely beneficial that OpenChain have created the Security Assurance Specification to provide guidance and benchmark the processes that have been implemented.”
“Interneuron has a long-term, focused approach on ensuring solutions provided to the NHS demonstrate excellence in sustainable, manageable ways as well as through providing technological solutions,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their previous adoption of OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 aligned their company behind reproducible, standard processes. Their newly announced adoption of the OpenChain Security Assurance Specification continues this path, and covers one of the most critical domains in information technology. Their conformance, accomplished in conjunction with their support partner Source Code Control, is an important milestone for the global community as well. With the OpenChain Security Assurance Specification disseminating worldwide, companies like Interneuron provide a clear example of how and why to leverage this standard today.”
About Interneuron
Interneuron is a different kind of healthcare IT organization. We are a purpose driven company, Community Interest Company (CIC) that exists primarily for the benefit of those in need of health and social care. Interneuron projects aim to help NHS organizations replace their legacy technology with world-class clinical software that will revolutionize the way in which data is integrated, stored and used. Interneuron’s open source philosophy is to make this new technology freely available. NHS Trusts will be able to download, test and implement the software, or receive support from Interneuron if that is preferred
Founded in 2014 by Martin Callinan, Source Code Control has established itself as one of the only Open Source and Cloud Transformation consultancy businesses. We help organizations who have software at the core of their company value, build trust in software supply chains and simplify the cloud transformation process. With this in mind, our main aim is to minimize an organization’s risk when dealing with open source and cloud software.
The OpenChain Project has an extensive global community that involves thousands of companies collaborating to make the supply chain quicker, more effective and more efficient. We work together to create trust between entities around open source. Our job is to increase trust in the open source supply chain. We do this by maintaining ISO/IEC 5230:2020, the International Standard for open source license compliance, and our Security Assurance Reference Specification. We also have a large global community where knowledge is shared to reduce friction and increase efficiency across all aspects of open source process management.
The Linux Foundation is the world’s largest non-profit connecting global technical experts, and providing them with a neutral and trusted platform to develop open source projects. Founded in 2000 as the home of the Linux Kernel, the Linux Foundation has grown to host hundreds of open source projects, with a community spanning 2,950+ members, 540,000+ contributing developers, and 19,000+ contributing companies.
