Shane Coughlan

Today the OpenChain Project announced LG Electronic’s conformance to OpenChain 2.1 (ISO/IEC 5230), the International Standard for open source license compliance. This standard defines the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program, and helps to both reduce errors and increase efficiency across the global supply chain.

“LG Electronics has been part of the OpenChain community since early in our deployment as an industry standard,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their formal adoption of ISO 5230 continues their long-term investment in great governance in this field, and continues their leadership role both in the Korean market and beyond. I am looking forward to continuing our collaboration and benefiting from the significant contributions of the LG Electronics team to knowledge, understanding and efficiency in this space.”

“LG Electronics has long been a leader in open source process management as well as an early adopter of the OpenChain specification,” said I.P. Park, CTO of LG Electronics. “Our alignment with ISO 5230 underlines and reinforces this important commitment and serves to illustrate how this international standard supports organizations across the consumer electronics industry.”

About the OpenChain Project

OpenChain began when a group of open source compliance professionals met in a conference lounge and chatted about how so much duplicative, redundant open source license compliance work was being done inefficiently in the software supply chain simply. They realized that while each company did the same work behind the scenes in a different manner the output for downstream recipients could not realistically be relied on because there was no visibility into the process that generated the output.
The answer the early principles of this discussion arrived at was to standardize open source compliance, make it transparent and build trust across the ecosystem. The project began as outreach to the community with the idea of a new standard for open source license compliance with slides titled, “When Conformity is Innovative.” A growing community quickly recognized the value of this approach and contributed to the nascent collaboration soon named The OpenChain Project.

Hitachi announces conformance to OpenChain 2.1 (ISO/IEC 5230), the International Standard for open source license compliance. This standard defines the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program, and helps to both reduce errors and increase efficiency across the global supply chain.

“Hitachi has been a pioneer in open source compliance both through early adoption of OpenChain in 2018 and engagement as part of the OpenChain governing board,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Today marks a historical development for both Hitachi and the OpenChain Project. Conformance to ISO 5230 is a significant accomplishment for an organization, and in the context of Hitachi it is also a rallying cry and a lighthouse for other large companies in Japan and abroad to follow.”

“Hitachi is proud to announce our conformance to OpenChain Specification v2.1, ISO/IEC 5230 International Standard,” says Ryo Kawai, Director of OSS Solution Center, Hitachi, Ltd. “The scope of the open source compliance program under this certification is System & Service Business of Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi encourages every participant of supply chain to adopt OpenChain and ISO/IEC 5230 so we together strengthen the trust in the supply chain. Hitachi has been a platinum member of the OpenChain Project since 2017 and actively participated in the activities. We are delighted to work with the incredible team of the OpenChain Project.”

About Hitachi

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is focused on its Social Innovation Business that combines information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and products. The company’s consolidated revenues for fiscal year 2019 (ended March 31, 2020) totaled 8,767.2 billion yen ($80.4 billion), and it employed approximately 301,000 people worldwide. Hitachi drives digital innovation across five sectors – Mobility, Smart Life, Industry, Energy and IT – through Lumada, Hitachi’s advanced digital solutions, services, and technologies for turning data into insights to drive digital innovation. Its purpose is to deliver solutions that increase social, environmental and economic value for its customers. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company’s website at https://www.hitachi.com.

About the OpenChain Project

OpenChain began when a group of open source compliance professionals met in a conference lounge and chatted about how so much duplicative, redundant open source license compliance work was being done inefficiently in the software supply chain simply. They realized that while each company did the same work behind the scenes in a different manner the output for downstream recipients could not realistically be relied on because there was no visibility into the process that generated the output.

The answer the early principles of this discussion arrived at was to standardize open source compliance, make it transparent and build trust across the ecosystem. The project began as outreach to the community with the idea of a new standard for open source license compliance with slides titled, “When Conformity is Innovative.” A growing community quickly recognized the value of this approach and contributed to the nascent collaboration soon named The OpenChain Project.

Today, the OpenChain Project announced Microsoft’s conformance to OpenChain 2.1 (ISO/IEC 5230), the International Standard for open source license compliance. This standard defines the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program, and helps to both reduce errors and increase efficiency across the global supply chain.

“Microsoft has been intimately involved in guided ISO/IEC 5230 from de facto industry standard to formal International Standard,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their adoption of OpenChain 2.1 underscores their continued commitment to excellence not only in software but also its management throughout the supply chain. We look forward to collaborating with Microsoft partners and customers in their own journeys to conformance in the coming weeks and months.”

“Microsoft sees ISO/IEC 5230 as a critical part of the management of open source in commercial relationships,” says David Rudin, Assistant General Counsel, Microsoft. “The OpenChain standard provides a clear, effective and universally suitable framework for open source license compliance. The use of this standard both simplifies and improves any transaction between two parties regarding open source software.”

About the OpenChain Project

OpenChain began when a group of open source compliance professionals met in a conference lounge and chatted about how so much duplicative, redundant open source license compliance work was being done inefficiently in the software supply chain simply. They realized that while each company did the same work behind the scenes in a different manner the output for downstream recipients could not realistically be relied on because there was no visibility into the process that generated the output.

The answer the early principles of this discussion arrived at was to standardize open source compliance, make it transparent and build trust across the ecosystem. The project began as outreach to the community with the idea of a new standard for open source license compliance with slides titled, “When Conformity is Innovative.” A growing community quickly recognized the value of this approach and contributed to the nascent collaboration soon named The OpenChain Project.

LFX is a toolkit built to facilitate every aspect of open source development. We will get a full overview of what it is about in the next OpenChain Webinar, including IP risk, security and Crowdfunding. (1)

Join Us At:
22:00 Pacific (PST)
Tuesday:
06:00 London (GMT)
07:00 Berlin (CET)
13:00 Beijing / Taipei (CST)
14:00 Seoul / Tokyo (KST / JST)

We meet without registration via Zoom:
⁨https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9990120120?pwd=NzVCaFE2L1RRRFZaSkk0dm8xdlplUT09⁩

(1) The crowdfunding was previous a separate project called CommunityBridge.