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The Linux Foundation is continuously monitoring the Novel Coronavirus situation to ensure the safety of our event participants and staff. We will be following all recommended guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as the situation progresses.

Despite the cancellation of MWC Barcelona, many other significant conferences are still occurring and we have no plans to cancel events in general. Note that the WHO is currently advising against the application of any restrictions on international traffic. Based on the information currently available on the outbreak, the CDC is recommending standard safety practices that should be instituted during any flu season, and there are no US Dept of State Travel Advisories for countries other than China with relation to Novel Coronavirus.

For the safety of our event participants, we will institute numerous safety measures and guidelines to ensure everyone’s health and wellbeing including:

• Keep up-to-date information on our event websites pertaining to the status of the event, and precautions for attendees onsite
• Send email communications to registered event participants with any pertinent updates leading up to the event
• Provide plentiful sanitation stations onsite at the event with alcohol-based hand sanitizer and wipes, tissue and facemasks
• Provide signage onsite encouraging attendees to practice Respiratory Hygiene, ie to cover your mouth and nose with a flexed elbow or tissue (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze; avoid touching your hands, nose, and mouth to avoid transferring germs from surfaces; discard a used tissue immediately into a closed trash can, and wash your hands with an alcohol-based sanitizer and/or soap and water right away.
• Provide signage to encourage attendees to maintain Social Distancing, ie to adopt a no-handshake policy at the event and stand a minimum of 3 feet (1 meter) from other people, especially those that may be sneezing, coughing and/or exhibiting cold/flu symptoms.
• We will regularly sanitize all surfaces through the event space and communicate with the venues to do the same
• We will be sanitizing speaker microphones between each speaker’s use
• Request that anyone sick or experiencing any cold/flu-like symptoms stay home for their own safety and the safety of others, and consider substituting a co-worker to attend in their place.
• We ask that any attendees onsite who might begin experience cold or flu-like symptoms (fever, cough, trouble breathing), to please seek medical care right away. We will have local medical care contact information available for all attendees and can assist any attendee with transportation to a local clinic.

We also ask all registered attendees to self-certify that if they have traveled to China in the last month, they ensure that at least 14 days have passed from the time they arrived from China to the event and that they have shown no flu-like symptoms in that time. If they have, we ask that for their own safety and the safety of other attendees, they substitute another attendee in their place and refrain from attending the event.

We will continue to regularly check the latest official information leading up to the event and encourage our event participants to do the same. We understand that there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now as we are in the early stages of the outbreak and a lot is still unknown, however, we want to ensure we’re making decisions based on factual recommendations rather than rumor or fear. 

Recommended Resources:

World Health Organization (WHO) Novel Coronavirus Daily Situation Reports:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Situation Summary:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Real-Time Data Dashboard from Johns Hopkins University: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

US Dept of State Travel Advisories:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/

The OpenChain Interviews continue with our first male interviewee, Leon from the law firm GTC. They are an official partner of the OpenChain Project and have wide engagement with user companies across the technology and service industries.

Read the Interview

• https://www.openchainproject.org/openchain-interview-11

Catch Up on All the OpenChain Interviews

• https://www.openchainproject.org/about/leaders

The OpenChain Project will have a substantial presence at the forthcoming Linux Foundation Member Summit held during the 10th to 12th March 2020 in Lake Tahoe.

Framing OpenChain as an ISO standard

• https://lfms2020.sched.com/event/a8cN/openchain-as-an-iso-standard-codifying-compliance-globally-shane-coughlan-linux-foundation

The Road to Conformance: Panel with Arm, Comcast, Google and Uber

• https://lfms2020.sched.com/event/a8cc/panel-discussion-the-journey-to-openchain-conformance-sami-atabani-arm-limited-nithya-ruff-comcast-max-sills-google-matt-kuipers-uber

Some Cool Talks by Community and Friends

• Leveraging Standards in Open Source Software Projects
• SPDX and Software Bill of Materials: Past, Present, and Future
• Building a Secure, Efficient Open Source Compliance Supply Chain at Scale
• More than Just Licenses: Compliance and Conformance for Linux Foundation Projects
• 10 Million Packages Later: Open Source Licensing Clarity Solved at Scal
• Panel Discussion: A Day in the Life of an OSPO
• Panel Discussion: Scaling Your OSPO
• And many many more…

See The Full Schedule

• https://lfms2020.sched.com/

In Other News

The OpenChain Project will host a board meeting on the 9th of March, the day immediately before the Linux Foundation Member Summit. Adjacent to this we may hold a Steering Committee meeting. We have no voting item at this time but it could provide a space for a walk-through of the forthcoming ISO standard. If you have an interest in this being scheduled for 3pm on the 9th please let me know.

The OpenChain Germany Work Group Meeting # 1 has full video minutes here:

There are three key outcomes

(1) We will work on a reporting format for open source disclosure documentation.

(2) We will work on business process material for corporate contribution methods.

(3) We will take ownership of the German translations for OpenChain. This includes the Specification.

It should also be noted

(a) Meetings will be held on a bi-monthly schedule.

(b) The next meeting will probably be in Stuttgart.
(i) Daimler+Bosch have offered to host in Stuttgart.
(ii) HERE has offered to host in Berlin. (*)
(iii) PwC has offered to host in Frankfurt.

(c) The Germany Work Group will be chaired by the host of each meeting.

Thank you to everyone for making this happen. On behalf of OpenChain Project as a whole, we are looking forward to next steps!
— Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager.

(*) The meeting at HERE will probably be held adjacent to a TODO Group Europe meeting.

SAN FRANCISCO, 5^th February 2020 – Today, the OpenChain Project welcomes NTT DATA Italy as our latest official partner. From its integral role in building Japan’s financial systems to helping to advance safety in air transportation, NTT DATA has been a pioneer of social change for more than five decades. The Italian subsidiary of NTT DATA offers a wide range of services related to the effective, efficient use of open source technology.

The OpenChain standard defines inflection points in business workflows where a compliance process, policy or training should exist to minimize the potential for errors and maximize the efficiency of bringing solutions to market. The companies involved in the OpenChain community number in the hundreds. The OpenChain standard is being prepared for submission to ISO and evolution from de facto into a formal standard in 2020.

“We are excited to announce our participation in the OpenChain community in order to offer our clients high quality and trusted open source solutions. With our contribution, we hope to increase the spread, growth, sustainability, and compliance in the use of Open Source technologies. ” says Stefano Veltri, Head of Open Source NTT DATA Italy.

“We are delighted to formally announce deeper collaboration with NTT DATA in Italy,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “In 2020 we expect to greatly expand the community and the vendor support available to companies across the European area. Our relationship with NTT DATA Italy is an integral component in our mission to offer a wide range of services adjacent to our industry standard for open source compliance.”

About NTT DATA

NTT DATA is a trusted global innovator headquartered in Tokyo, with 118,000+ professionals in more than 50 countries. We deal with innovation, design, technology, cybersecurity and AI, delivering tangible business results by combining deep industry expertise. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, a partner to 88 percent of the Fortune Global 100.
www.nttdata.com/it

About the OpenChain Project

The OpenChain 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.

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.

Media Contacts

Shane Coughlan
+818040358083
coughlan@linux.com

Sara Bianchi
NTT DATA Media relation manager
sara.bianchi@nttdata.com 
T +39 02 8312 5842 

Giorgia Bazurli
Comin & Partners
giorgia.bazurli@cominandpartners.com
T +39 3492840676

Shane Coughlan, the OpenChain General Manager, has been named a participant in the United Nations Technology Innovation Labs OS and IP Advisory Group. While he is formally contributing as an individual, a key aspect of his engagement will be focused on ensuring that the OpenChain standard for open source compliance is fully understood, and that our broader community interests are effectively communicated.

For reference, the proposed UNTIL licensing frameworks/models for identified use cases are to:

1. Enable technology solutions sharing and transfer to and among Member States
2. Enable sharing technology solutions with the wider UNTIL ecosystems and the general public
3. Enable cooperation between the UN and relevant partners in utilizing UNTIL technology (possibly through service level agreement-based fee structures paid by users of the technology solution)
4. Enable the promotion of proprietary technology solutions that are incubated in the labs through UNTIL assistance towards start-ups and commercial organizations
5. Enable engagement with the Academia and the research world

The group meets by telephone and at physical venues on a quarterly basis.

Learn More about the UNTIL OS and IP Advisory Group

• https://until.un.org/content/expert-fora

The recent outbreak of a serious new Coronavirus in Asia has created a serious health challenge across multiple countries. Our thoughts are with everyone in areas impacted by illness, by travel restrictions, or with family in these areas. There is nothing more important than health and safety and we are sorry that so many currently face challenges in precisely these areas.

It is too early to say what the impact of this virus will be throughout Q1 and into Q2. It is possible that some of our events such as the third OpenChain China Work Group meeting – currently scheduled for 3rd of March @ Xiaomi in Beijing – will need to be postponed. Right now we plan to go ahead with the meeting. We will keep you informed of changes.

Stay safe everyone.

The OpenChain Project is being featured by HH Partners, an official OpenChain Partner, at the Mindtrek Conference in Finland from the 28th to 20th January.

HH Partners are a long-term sponsor of this event and are hosting a stand there to explain their work, their services and – of course – OpenChain.

Learn More

• https://www.mindtrek.org/2020/

SAN FRANCISCO, January 23, 2020 – The OpenChain Project is delighted to welcome Lyra Infosystems as our latest official partner. Lyra Infosystems offer services around Software Composition Analysis, Open Source Security, OS Compliance, OS Audits, Open Source Vulnerability Assessment, Open Source Support and more. Beyond offering a wide range of services related to the effective, efficient use of open source technology, Lyra Infosystems is also an active participant in the broader OpenChain community, collaborating alongside user companies to build great reference material and to support the principle of making open source compliance obtainable by companies everywhere.

Lyra Infosystems is the first Indian company to achieve Open Chain 1.0 conformant status with extensive experience of helping companies globally adopt and manage Open Source software. Lyra Infosystems is also certified for Open Chain 2.0 conformance.

The OpenChain standard defines inflection points in business workflows where a compliance process, policy or training should exist to minimize the potential for errors and maximize the efficiency of bringing solutions to market. The companies involved in the OpenChain community number in the hundreds. The OpenChain standard is being prepared for submission to ISO and evolution from de facto into a formal standard in 2020.

“Lyra Infosytems is an Open Source promoter, user, provider and services organization with more than 250+ customers across geographies, domains, industries and technology verticals,”says Naba Magrabi, Open Source Senior Consultant for Lyra Infosystems. “We are excited and delighted to be part of OpenChain Ecosystem to offer OpenChain conformance services, Open Source Policy, Process, Compliance consultation, Legal Remediation and Audit services to organizations around the globe.”

“The OpenChain community is extremely diverse and our engagement with Lyra Infosystems is an excellent example of this,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “As both an open source user and a vendor providing open source services, Lyra bridges the two primary business use-cases for our technology approach. I am delighted to build on our fantastic collaboration around OpenChain conformance and to formally provide another commercial support option for user companies in India and beyond.”

About Lyra Infosystems

Lyra Infosystems is an Enterprise Technology & IT Consulting Company headquartered in Bangalore with offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Singapore .Lyra Infosystems brings a decade of experience in the field of supporting their customers to design ,build and maintain infrastructure based on Open Source Software. In addition , Lyra also focuses in helping businesses in technology areas like Software Composition Analysis, Open Source Security , Open Source Compliance, Open Source Audits , Legal Remediation , DevOps/DevSecOps, Remote Support, Open Source Monitoring , Privilege Identity & Access Management, Collaboration suite and Open Source ERP/CRM .Lyra boasts of more than 284+ customers with a mix of enterprise, startups and small medium businesses

About the OpenChain Project

The OpenChain 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.

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.

Media Contacts

Shane Coughlan
+818040358083
scoughlan@linuxfoundation.org

SAN FRANCISCO, January 23, 2020 – Today, the OpenChain Project welcomes GTC Law Group PC & Affiliates as our latest official partner. GTC, based in the United States, specializes in IP Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Business & Technology Transactions for IP-centric companies and institutions worldwide. Their engagement with the OpenChain Project marks another milestone in building out global support for user companies adopting our industry standard for open source compliance.

The OpenChain standard defines inflection points in business workflows where a compliance process, policy or training should exist to minimize the potential for errors and maximize the efficiency of bringing solutions to market. The companies involved in the OpenChain community number in the hundreds. The OpenChain standard is being prepared for submission to ISO and evolution from de facto into a formal standard in 2020.

“The OpenChain standard has the potential to both bring much-needed clarity to open source compliance programs and to reduce duplication of efforts in compliance programs and during M&A and investment transactions” says GTC’s Leon Schwartz.  “We look forward to continuing and growing our relationship with OpenChain and helping drive the standard’s adoption worldwide” adds GTC’s Tony Decicco.

“As OpenChain has seen increased adoption globally there has been a steady push for expanding the network of support available for user companies refining their compliance programs,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Our relationship with GTC helps bolster our position in both the North American and global market, and it also formalizes our cooperative relationship in a manner aligned with the project’s strategic goals. I am looking forward to close collaboration with the GTC team as we support our user companies in the global rollout of the OpenChain standard in the supply chain.”

About GTC’s Open Source Compliance and Due Diligence Group

GTC’s open source compliance and due diligence group is staffed by attorneys and paralegals almost all of whom are former software developers. This allows GTC to provide clients with practical solutions to their open-source-related questions and concerns. From code reviews performed in the context of transactions (such as mergers & acquisitions, investments and IPOs) to helping clients develop compliance programs and implement robust and nimble open source policies across large and small organizations, GTC prides itself on providing actionable, real-world advice that helps its clients leverage open source software in their products and create and contribute to open source projects, all while understanding and mitigating the risks involved.

For more information about GTC, please see: www.gtclawgroup.com.

About the OpenChain Project

The OpenChain 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.

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.

Media Contacts

Shane Coughlan
+818040358083
scoughlan@linuxfoundation.org