Monthly Newsletter

Newsletter – Issue 16 – August 2018

Introduction

The OpenChain Project focused on long-term expansion this month. We delivered video and slide solutions to help people understand the project, understand how to accomplish conformance and how to explain the project to third-parties. We also staked our first outreach in Russia and India via new translations. Of course the community was not neglected! We help a fruitful workshop adjacent to Open Source Summit North America. This event provided a great opportunity to open the discussion around the next generation of the OpenChain Specification.

Outreach

This month sees some special releases from the OpenChain Project designed to help people understand the project, understand how to accomplish self-certification and to deliver talks related to the project.

Our overview video explains the challenges the project solves and how companies of all sizes can frame their engagement. It also shows how the “stack” of open source compliance solutions work together to solve challenges quickly and efficiently.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/28/openchain-a-video-overview

Our self-certification video explains the free online process for companies to confirm they meet the requirements of the OpenChain Specification. This presentation is suitable for companies of all sizes that want to engage with and adopt the OpenChain Specification.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/28/openchain-a-video-guide-to-self-certification

Our new slide-deck is designed to explain OpenChain internally in companies or to external suppliers/customers. It includes a reference script in the speaker notes.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/29/slidedeck-openchain-great-open-source-compliance-for-everyone

Events

The OpenChain Project hosted an open source license compliance workshop adjacent to Open Source Summit. It featured new compliance reference material, new training material and new case studies. We had interactive panels and plenty of networking to ensure an excellent opportunity to get the latest and most useful information about compliance.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/17/openchain-workshop-open-source-summit-north-america

We also hosted a social event adjacent to Open Source Summit North America immediately after our official workshop at the Mosaic Grille in the Hyatt Regency. This provided a great opportunity to informally discuss the project today and where we might go tomorrow.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/17/openchain-social-event-open-source-summit-north-america

Contributions

The OpenChain Project received two exceptional contributions related to our international expansion.

We received a draft of the OpenChain Specification 1.2 in Russian. This document was contributed by Denis Dorotenko at Yandex and it marks our first major activity to support the Russian market.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/20/help-improve-the-draft-openchain-specification-1-2-in-russian

We also received a draft of the OpenChain Specification 1.2 in Hindi. This document was contributed by Shuvajit Mitra at Infosys and it marks our first major activity to support the Indian market.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/08/20/help-improve-the-draft-openchain-specification-1-2-in-hindi

Summary

The OpenChain Project continues to benefit from its global community, with the message behind the project and supporting materials being contributed on virtually every continent. Extrapolating from this, our next stop will be Africa! But first, we have a busy schedule of events, releases and document revisions in the coming months. Watch this space.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Newsletter – Issue 15 – July 2018

Introduction

The OpenChain Project returned to Asia with significant outreach activities announced for the Chinese language supply chain. We continued to release case studies from Japanese and global stakeholders. The project reference material was also expanded with the release of a second and more detailed set of tooling slides under CC-0.

Events

The OpenChain Project had a strong focus on Taiwan this month, announcing three workshops from the 9th to 12th of August, one of which constitutes the first legal track for the COSCUP conference. COSCUP is the premier open source conference in Taipei and usually attracts a couple of thousand attendees. Each of these workshops will be represented by the OpenChain Project and our friends from Sony and Panasonic.

The first OpenChain workshop was announced for the MOXA company and university in South Taipei with a focus on providing an easy starting point for engaging with compliance issues:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/07/12/openchain-announces-workshop-in-taipei

The second workshop was announced in conjunction with the Open Culture Foundation (OFC) and focused on providing an intermediate introduction to license management and corporate strategy:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/07/10/openchain-announces-legal-track-coscup

Finally, the legal track at the COSCUP conference on the 12th August was given a focus on end-to-end compliance discussions to guide project managers from A to Z around key requirements and efficiencies:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/07/17/openchain-announces-legal-track-coscup-12th-august

Contributions

The OpenChain Project shared two new sets of case studies with the community-at-large.

The first collection of case studies constituted three consumer device company case studies. These encompassed company approaches, priorities and engagement with OpenChain. They are provided in anonymous format from major international stakeholders in both OpenChain and open source more generally.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/07/12/openchain-announces-three-consumer-devices-case-studies

The second collection constituted four anonymous open source compliance case studies from Japan. These case studies mark the conclusion of our sequence of releases that saw information shared by Toyota, Hitachi, Sony and many more.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/07/17/openchain-announces-four-more-japanese-case-studies

Releases

The OpenChain Project announced the release of a second set of tooling slides. These slides were contributed by Software Compliance Academy, one of our strategic partners in Germany, and built on our first release in May. As with all contributions to the OpenChain learning materials (curriculum and onboarding), these slides are published under the CC-0 license, effectively public domain.
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/07/16/openchain-announces-second-set-of-reference-tooling-slides

Improved Outreach

Work continued on our Japanese translation of the website and web app. Due to some reworking around the code our release schedule slipped from July to a projected late August release:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-announces-japanese-website

Work has also begun on the Chinese translation of the OpenChain website. Expect further announcements around this during August.

Summary

The OpenChain Project continues to execute around its strategy of building international bridges and knowledge sharing both in the English language and local languages by country. Of particular note was the release of further case studies and expanded tooling slides as a direct response to community requests. August will see a continuation of outreach activities and a deep dive into our specification update discussions.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Newsletter – Issue 14 – June 2018

Introduction

It has been a busy month for the OpenChain Project. We had a particular focus on outreach in Asia and Germany, building new connections in Tokyo, Beijing and Berlin that will help accelerate adoption. We also released a significant amount of reference material and reports, including our first large-scale tranche of case studies.

Events

We kicked off the outreach with an Asian Legal Network event in Beijing. This intimate event provided an opportunity to present the basics of the OpenChain Project and to highlight our material to assist in the adoption of key requirements of quality open source programs. You can learn more about this event here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/17/openchain-asian-legal-network-beijing

The OpenChain Japan Work Group was next with its fourth meeting at Toyota’s Midland Square offices on the 13th of June. Over 40 representatives from 26 companies gather to share their case studies and knowledge around compliance. You can learn more about this event here (and read below to get links to some of our fantastic new case studies):
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/05/reminder-fourth-meeting-of-the-openchain-japan-work-group
and
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/13/openchain-japan-work-group-toyota-in-nagoya

We continued our momentum by delivering a keynote at the inaugural FOSS Backstage conference in Berlin on the 14th. This event brought a diverse group of corporate and community figures together, and provided an excellent opportunity to connect with parties that we already have some dialogue with in this geography:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/14/openchain-keynote-foss-backstage
and
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/14/openchain-workshop-foss-backstage

You can watch the video of our keynote right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojW_qH9sMBc

OpenChain was next featured during a special presentation at a FOSS Compliance Seminar in Berlin hosted by our local partner – Software Compliance Academy – and KDAB:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/14/openchain-foss-compliance-intensive-seminar-berlin

We returned to Asia for the Open Source Summit Japan. Toyota featured OpenChain prominently during their opening keynote of the event. You can see some of the excellent pictures – and get an idea of Toyota’s open source approach – right here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-toyotas-keynote-in-open-source-summit-japan

Meanwhile, we also had an OpenChain specific speech at the conference. You can review the slides right here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-project-open-source-summit-japan-the-slides

OpenChain give a general audience speech and held a dedicated workshop at LinuxCon China on the 25th of June, providing our first large-scale engagement with the local audience. Thanks to this event we have built some useful bridges that will lead to further workshops later in the year:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/07/openchain-workshop-at-linuxcon-china-schedule-and-registration-details

As part of the China outreach we also launched a WeChat group. For those unfamiliar with the Chinese market, WeChat is the most widely used communication client beyond email, and it provides excellent ways to keep in contact with large numbers of people:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/14/openchain-announces-wechat-group-for-china

Contributions and Releases

We really shone on the community contribution and report front this month.

Our international colleagues contributed automotive case studies during the April Legal and Licensing Workshop in Barcelona. These case studies are now available in anonymized format for all to learn from:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/10/openchain-announces-automotive-case-studies

Back in Asia, the OpenChain Japan Work Group continued their excellent work with the release of a series of company-specific case-studies.

Panasonic:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/31/openchain-announces-japanese-case-studies

Hitachi:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/05/openchain-announces-hitachi-case-study

Sony:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/07/openchain-announces-sony-case-study

Toyota:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-project-announces-toyota-case-study

Fujitsu:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-project-announces-fujitsu-case-study

Hitachi Solutions:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-project-announces-hitachi-solution-case-study

This material was bolstered by our first location-specific Japanese onboarding material provided a great example of how to bring new stakeholders into the fold. As a reminder, the Japan Work Group conducts its meetings in Japanese, and therefore the onboarding material is also in the local language. Check it out here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-project-announces-japanese-onboarding-material

We also continued our process of translating great international material into local languages with the release of Japanese reference checklists. These are translations of the checklists launched during Q2 for the English speaking market:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-announces-japanese-checklists

New Partners

We were delighted to welcome two more parties to our pilot partner program. Source Code Control (UK) and EACG (Germany) provide a significant expansion of our European footprint. We look forward to collaborating with both to bring their clients into the OpenChain fold:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/10/openchain-announces-two-new-partners
It should be noted that we have been working with Source Code Control for a while, and their excellent advocacy lead to our conformance relationship with the British National Health Service.

Improve Outreach

Our website is getting a significant overhaul to better feature both the raft of contributions listed above and other recent material. This process should be complete bu mid-July. You can already see the first fruits online, with enhanced self-certification, conformance and FAQ material:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/10/openchain-announces-redesigned-website

As usual, our Japanese community is fully engaged, and this means that our first full translation of the website will be in Japanese. We have released a preview during June and expect to have the formal website release in July:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/06/21/openchain-announces-japanese-website

Summary

The OpenChain Project is having a significant impact on global open source compliance discussions. As we do this we are discovering new ways to support corporate engagement with open source and to foster more effective supply chain management of open source code.

Our outreach has highlight a series of steps that companies are going through on their path to having all the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program. Toyota summarized it as follows:
Stage 1: No knowledge of compliance
Stage 2: Knowledge of compliance without knowing what to do
Stage 3: Knowing what to do but not understanding how to do it
Stage 4: Knowing what to do and how to do it

Our experience shows that most companies are at stage 2 and 3. In certain jurisdictions a surprising number of companies are at the intermediate point between Stage 1 and 2. Stage 4 is where companies are positioned for conformance to the OpenChain Specification. Right now we are helping a lot of entities on their journey. This will pay increasing dividends over time and validate the value provided by this project, our approach and our vibrant community.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Newsletter – Issue 13 – May 2018

Introduction

There are two central themes this month: events and reference documentation. Alongside a raft of opportunities for people to learn more about OpenChain at face-to-face meetings we have seen the release of checklists, kanban guides and tooling overview slides. Our internationalization has also continued apace, with the new Specification 1.2 already available in Japanese, and new onboarding slides in German contributed from members of our volunteer community.

OpenChain @ Events

Featured Event: OpenChain @ LinuxCon China

The OpenChain Project will host a workshop at LinuxCon China on the 25th of June. It will explain modern open source compliance, how the OpenChain education and reference material can help companies, and how the OpenChain Specification is being used by companies to increase efficiency and save costs.

This is a free workshop designed to answer real-world questions. Program managers, project managers, open source office members, legal personnel and business decision-makers will all find something useful in its content. To register simply send an email to coughlan@linux.com

Event Date/Time: Monday, June 25, 2018, 8:00 – 12:00
Event Location: China National Convention Center, Beijing
Event Cost: Complimentary

Learn More (and view the details in Chinese) here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/16/announcing-the-openchain-workshop-linuxcon-china

Save the Date:

The next Asian Legal Network event will take place on the 28th May in Beijing. OpenChain Project will be featured in a keynote speech. This will lay the foundation for our larger workshop on 25th June.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/17/openchain-asian-legal-network-beijing

The OpenChain Japan Work Group will hold its fourth meeting at Toyota’s Midland Square offices on the 13th of June. This event builds on the recent meeting held at Panasonic’s facilities in Osaka with representatives from 15 companies in attendance, and will be a great chance to obtain practical case studies, reference material and to network.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/04/30/save-the-date-fourth-meeting-of-the-openchain-japan-work-group

The Software Compliance Academy will host a FOSS Compliance Seminar on June 14th to 15th in Berlin. This seminar will feature the OpenChain Specification and reference material, providing a great starting point for organizations in Germany, Switzerland or Austria to begin their engagement with the project. More information is available in German below and on the Software Compliance Academy website.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/15/foss-compliance-seminar-featuring-openchain-in-berlin

The OpenChain Project will be featured at (and a sponsor of) COSCUP in Taipei on the 11th and 12th of August 2018. Our project leader Shane Coughlan along with Japanese community volunteers and Taiwanese community collaborators will participate in the event’s new legal track to share practical compliance solutions and case studies.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/16/openchain-coscup-taiwan-2018-legal-track-multiple-speakers

What You Missed:

May 14th featured the second OpenChain Workshop in Taipei. This event builds on a compliance workshop held during April and marks another step towards the Legal Track that OpenChain will help organize at the COSCUP conference on August 11th and 12th.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/14/openchain-workshop-in-taipei

OpenChain Reference Material

The OpenChain Project is delighted to announce the immediate availability of a Conformance and Compliance Checklist to assist with quick, easy and effective adoption of key requirements for quality open source compliance programs. This document is targeted to support direct conformance activities. It frames the key requirements for conformance in a simple yes/no format that can rapidly contextualize progress in an organization.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/11/meet-the-openchain-conformance-and-compliance-checklist

The OpenChain Project is delighted to release two reference kanban workflows, one contributed from ID Law Partners in Spain and the other contributed from Source Code Control in the UK. These contributions provide inspiration around how organizations can use a simple workflow to check and improve their open source compliance activities. The end goal of both reference kanban workflows is to support OpenChain Conformance, but it is worth noting that the materials are also suitable for activities adjacent to or separate from specific conformance initiatives.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/uncategorized/2018/05/16/openchain-releases-compliance-process-kanban-guides

OpenChain Project is delighted to announce that we have received tooling overview slides from Software Compliance Academy in Germany. This contribution provides a high level overview and more specific explanations of how and where tooling can contribute to increased efficiency in open source compliance. The goal is not to provide specific recommendations but rather to frame the discussion to allow organizations to make informed and use-case specific decisions to support their inbound, internal and outbound software management process.

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/15/openchain-project-announces-tooling-overview-slides

OpenChain @ Companies

Toyota Motor Corporation has released slides explaining the rationale and benefit of their engagement with the OpenChain Project.

“Toyota has built strong ties into the global open source development community and into areas related to open source patent non-aggression and copyright compliance. During the Legal & Licensing Workshop in Barcelona during April 2018 Endo San from the Toyota legal team explained their approach and the benefits it brings.”

Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/14/toyota-and-strategic-engagement-with-compliance-via-openchain

OpenChain Internationalization

The OpenChain Project has received a contribution of localized onboarding slides from Bird & Bird in Germany. This short deck is designed to help organizations without prior knowledge of OpenChain understand the reasoning and key benefits behind the project. This marks another milestone in the on-going internationalization of OpenChain-related material to support both OpenChain Conformance and broader open source compliance activities in organizations of all sizes.

• Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/15/openchain-onboarding-slides-in-german

The OpenChain Specification Version 1.2 is now available in Japanese. Version 1.2 is the result of the contributions of more than 150 people over the past three years. Congratulations and a big thanks to all those who contributed! Each and every contribution, whether or not it resulted in an addition, modification or debate, led to a better specification. Huge thanks are due to the Linux Foundation Japan volunteer translation team for localizing our newest release so quickly. Special thanks is due to Taniguchi San for driving this process.

• Learn More: https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/05/11/openchain-specification-1-2-in-japanese

Coming next

The next month will focus on case studies and conformance. We will also be discussing the next version of the specification on our usual first and third month conference calls. All invited, all welcome!

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Newsletter – Issue 12 – April 2018

Introduction

OpenChain has reached several important milestones during the last month. The first is a new release of the Specification (see below) but no less important are the strides being seen in adoption, reference material contributions, case studies and local work teams or workshops. It provides a strong start to our quarter with thanks, as always, due to our vibrant community.

OpenChain Specification

The OpenChain Specification version 1.2 was released on the 19th of April at the Legal and Licensing Workshop in Barcelona. This document presents a refined, easier to understand and easier to translate format. Our goal is to open our community to wider participation and adoption.

Specification version 1.2 is the result of contributions of more than 150 people over the past three years. Congratulations and a big thanks to all those who contributed! Each and every contribution, whether or not it resulted in an addition, modification or debate, led to a better specification.

• Download a copy of the specification here: https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/_media/openchain/openchainspec-1.2.pdf
• Learn more about it here: https://www.openchainproject.org/spec
• Self-certify here: https://www.openchainproject.org/conformance

Feel a little out of your depth? You can get a better understanding of how the specification was developed and what its goals are right here:

• https://www.openchainproject.org/specification-faq

OpenChain Conformance

The OpenChain Project is delighted to welcome NodeWeaver as the latest organization with an OpenChain conformant program. NodeWeaver is a zero-management hyperconverged infrastructure – that integrates storage, networking and virtualization in a single system. It is built using the same principles of large scale systems used by Google and Amazon, making them available to small and medium enterprises.

Great feedback was provided on their experience with our project:
“With more than 80% of our code being open source, Open Source license compliance is an essential aspect for us” says Carlo Daffara, NodeWeaver’s CEO. “OpenChain helped us in making the process streamlined, repeatable and consistent, and substantially lowered our compliance cost while increasing visibility into all aspect of our production process.”

Learn more here:

• https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/04/18/nodeweavers-a-new-openchain-conformant-organization

But there is more! As mentioned in our last newsletter, we have been working with the British National Health Service and their partners on both conformance and case studies. We are honored to be able to formally announce the first fruits of this collaboration.

We have welcomed AB EHR as an organization with an OpenChain Conformant program, an important step towards practical adoption by NHS providers charged with running technical projects, in this case the Code4Health initiative.

Martin of Source Code Control, the key liaison in this collaboration provided a quote to summarise the value seen:
“We have been supporting Code4Health for a number of years to manage their open source supply chain. The OpenChain Specification has enabled us to validate the processes meet industry best practice and that the solutions being promoted to NHS are best of breed and this can be transparently demonstrated.” Martin Callinan, Director Source Code Control Ltd.

Learn more here:

• https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2018/04/18/ab-ehr-a-new-openchain-conformant-organization

OpenChain Case Studies

The OpenChain Project is delighted to announce the release of our first case study, a collaboration with NHS England, NHS Digital and AB EHR. This case study offers an insight into how and why the British National Health Service has decided to use the OpenChain Specification as a baseline for effective compliance across its digital projects.

Our first case study is centered around adoption by the service provider AB EHR for the code4health project. This marks the first step in a broader deployment plan across multiple projects and providers in the coming months and years.

You can download the case study here:

• https://github.com/OpenChain-Project/Onboarding/raw/master/case%20studies/AB%20EHR%20OpenChain%20Case%20Study.pdf

OpenChain @ Events

The OpenChain Project was featured at numerous events across the globe in late March and throughout April.

1. The first event was in partnership with Moorcrofts in the UK with an OpenChain session at a BCS event in London on the 22nd of March.
2. On the same day Software Compliance Academy highlighted the OpenChain Project, curriculum, training and specification at an event hosted on the 22nd March by ZVEI, one of the most important manufacturers’ associations in Germany.
3. We were then featured in a keynote on OpenChain at Linaro Connect in Hong Kong (also on the 22nd March!).
4. The OpenChain Project was featured at the first Asian Legal Network meeting of 2018 in Tokyo on the 6th of April.
5. This was followed by an Asian Legal Network event in Seoul on the 12th of April.
6. We had a substantial presence at the Legal and Licensing Workshop Barcelona between the 18th and 20th of April.
7. Which overlapped with a simultaneous third meeting of the OpenChain Japan Work Group at the Panasonic headquarters in Osaka on the 19th of April, attended by representatives from 15 companies.

Keep track of all our events here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/events

OpenChain Internationalization

Internationalization efforts are being prepared to translate the new OpenChain Specification into our key target languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean and German). Activity is also underway to provide outcomes from the Japan Work Group sessions to the wider community. Of particular note are several case studies from companies like Panasonic to discuss their experiences and reasons for engagement.

Coming next

You can expect additional announcements regarding conformant organizations, reference materials and translations in the coming month. The process for developing the OpenChain Specification 1.3 will also get underway. All contributions, suggestions and comments are always welcome.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Newsletter – Issue 11 – March 2018

Introduction

This month is all about the OpenChain Specification. We are approaching a new release and are seizing the opportunity for reaffirming the core text and goals of the project. At the same time we are seeing new interest and engagement from both technology stakeholders and those from further afield. Speaking of further afield, we just released some milestone curriculum material in Simplified Chinese under CC-0 licensing (effectively public domain). See below.

OpenChain Specification

The OpenChain Project has developed a specification that defines a core set of requirements that a quality FOSS compliance program is expected to satisfy. Although it represents a minimum set of “must have” requirements, a significant degree of flexibility is given on how an organization might implement them. OpenChain Conformance helps to reduce concerns about open source compliance in organizations of all types and sizes.

We update the specification periodically based on feedback from our community. At the moment we are in the home stretch before releasing version 1.2 in April. This release does not change the requirements of the specification but introduces improvements to language and definitions to make OpenChain Conformance and translations easier. We are seeking public comments as we wrap things up.

Everyone is invited to make their voice heard before we conclude public comments on the 15th of April. You can review the latest draft of the OpenChain Specification – and see what has changed on page 3 – by heading to this link:
https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/_media/openchain/openchainspec-1.2.markup.draft.pdf

If you want a “clean” version of the current draft you can get it here:
https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/_media/openchain/openchainspec-1.2.draft.pdf

We welcome any and all feedback from all parties. The easiest way to provide such feedback and to get involved in the conversation is to mail our Specification list:
Openchain-specification@lists.linuxfoundation.org

Feel a little out of your depth? You can get a better understanding of how the specification was developed and what its goals are right here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/specification-faq

OpenChain Conformance and Case Studies

There are several large entities currently undergoing OpenChain Conformance. We are working closely with these new and old community partners to assist and to learn. OpenChain Conformance is often a two-way process, involving listening to great feedback that helps us improve the OpenChain Specification or the OpenChain Conformance process itself.

One of the first announcements coming up, and our first case study, is being arranged with Code4Health, a project of the English National Health Service and National Health Service Digital. We expect to formally release the case study and announce their conformance by the end of this month. Meanwhile, Code4Health – the first program inside the NHS to conform – is already Tweeting:

OpenChain @ Events

We have completed some interesting event outreach during the early part of March. One of the most notable was a workshop held in partnership with the Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan) on the 5th of March, an event that fits neatly into our Asian outreach priorities. A few points became clear:

• Most attendees had a direct interest in using some or all of the OpenChain curriculum to support their compliance efforts.
• All attendees expressed interest having open source compliance collaboration between companies to encourage deeper open source use in companies.
• Most attendees faced various challenges in explaining this to the administrative side of their businesses.

One area of useful feedback was that some attendees asked for future events to be held in Hsichu or Neihu so that their colleagues can join. Some may be able to offer a meeting room at their offices. Our colleagues at the Open Culture Foundation are exploring the opportunities and may hold another workshop in April or May.

OpenChain Project held a governing board meeting, a face-t0-face and a standing room-only talk at the Linux Foundation’s Open Source Leadership Summit in Sonoma. This event was a great chance to reconnect with many of our core constituents and to personally engage with some potential new contributors.

For those of you who are new to the project, our governing board consists of representatives from our 14 Platinum Members, and it meets once every quarter to discuss strategy. Their input ties directly into the activities of our Specification, Conformance, Curriculum and Onboarding work teams, each of which was represented or discussed during our open session. The OpenChain talk was delivered by Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Project Director, to the general Leadership Summit audience. It was interesting to note the level of engagement and questions fielded by the audience. It highlights both the amount of interest there is around improving compliance and areas where we can usefully focus on developing new onboarding or reference material.

The OpenChain Project has some forthcoming events that may be of interest to our readers:

1. In partnership with Moorcrofts in the UK the OpenChain Project announced details for an OpenChain session at a BCS event in London on the 22nd of March.
2. Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Project Director, will deliver a keynote on OpenChain at Linaro Connect in Hong Kong on the 22nd March.
3. The OpenChain Japan Work Group has announced that its third meeting will be held on the 19th of April at the Panasonic offices in Osaka.
4. The OpenChain Project will be featured in talks and workshops at the Legal Network ‘Legal and Licensing Workshop’ held in Barcelona between the 18th and 20th of April.

Keep track of all our events here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/events

OpenChain Internationalization

The OpenChain Curriculum slides are now available in Simplified Chinese. This is a significant milestone in sharing useful open source compliance information with a key target demographic. Great thanks are due to Hung Chang and Navia Shen for initiating the OpenChain Simplified Chinese translator team, to Lucien Lin for creating this translation, and to Florence Ko for review.

Get the slides in PDF, PPTX and ODP formats here:
https://github.com/OpenChain-Project/Curriculum-Translation-zh-Hans

Coming next

The next month will be all about case studies, reference material and expanding the community of conformance. Not to mention the formal release of the OpenChain Specification 1.2. Stay tuned and feel free to join any of our work teams at any time. You insights always help make us better.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Newsletter – Issue 10 – February 2018

Introduction

The first two months of 2018 have been focused on building outreach in the China, Japan and Korea (CJK) region. We have established friendships and reached agreements to help spread the OpenChain Curriculum and broader OpenChain material to a wider audience. As part of this our localization efforts have continued at a rapid pace.

But that’s not all! OpenChain Project volunteers have been extremely busy prepare the version 1.2 update for the OpenChain Specification, we have seen background work to improve our free online conformance service, and our onboarding work team has entered a revision period for key documentation.

OpenChain Specification

The latest draft of the OpenChain Specification 1.2 can be accessed here:
https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/_media/openchain/openchainspec-1.2.draft.pdf

This draft will be finalized at the OpenChain Face-to-Face at the Open Source Leadership Summit in March (see below) and is expected to be released in April. While it contains no new requirements and represents a minor change to the specification, this revision offers substantially improved clarity and ease of translation.

OpenChain Onboarding

The Onboarding team is looking for final feedback or edits for two documents as we prepare to share material at the Open Source Leadership Summit:

• OpenChain General Handout:
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tcXITiwFbUqK9JTEwz_JLJhtG9GRPyQa4cLdSULKn0I/edit?usp=sharing
• OpenChain Checklist Handout:
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LFx9mK0ZaZMLZzZ2mjlHAqgFdQNuYrCXVnFfmgFZdcU/edit?usp=sharing

OpenChain Conformance Web App

The OpenChain Conformance Web App has obtained various improvements to version control and – more recently – taken the first steps towards internationalization. Our goal is to release the web app in multiple languages from Q2 onwards.

OpenChain @ Events

The OpenChain Project has been fleshing out our 2018 event calendar with a series of announcements:

1. The OpenChain Japan Work Group announced details for its second meeting on the 22nd of February.
2. In partnership with the Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan) the OpenChain Project announced details of a Curriculum Workshop in Taipei on the 5th of March.
3. The schedule of the next OpenChain Face-to-Face meeting has been announced for the 5th of March at the Open Source Leadership Summit in Sonoma.
4. In partnership with Moorcrofts in the UK the OpenChain Project announced details for an OpenChain session at a BCS event in London on the 22nd of March.
5. We have also been in the fortunate position of being able to outline further details of expected future activities in Taiwan and Mainland China. While some details are subject to change the key take-away is that we are seeing healthy progress towards deeper engagement in a key market area.

Keep track of all our events here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/events

OpenChain Accessibility

To support our recent expansion of workshops in the Far East we have had a strong of excellent announcements regarding localization resources.

1. The OpenChain Curriculum, a slide deck that covers everything from “what is a license” through to open source developer guides, has been released in Traditional Chinese. This excellent development owes much thanks to Lucien Lin and Florence Ko of the Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan).
2. An additional output of this process has be a published draft for the Simplified Chinese translation of the same material. This draft provides a foundation for our volunteers to work towards a complete release in the near future.

As always this material is available in editable formats on our GitHub in both Traditional and Simplified Chinese.

Coming next

In the next month you can expect announcements regarding the Specification version 1.2, new onboarding material, and feedback regarding our Curriculum. Moving into Q2 you can expect increased internationalization, further engagement in North America and Europe, and case studies or reference material to support adoption.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Issue 9 – January 2018

Introduction

A happy new year to all our readers! As we kick off 2018 the OpenChain Project is announcing a wide range of talks, meetings and keynotes. We are also putting in place material and relationships to spearhead increased engagement with Japanese and Chinese-speaking stakeholders. We look forward to working with our entire community throughout 2018 to drive adoption of the OpenChain Specification, our reference training material, and to raise the bar for open source compliance knowledge in general.

OpenChain @ Events

The OpenChain Project has been fleshing out our 2018 event calendar with a series of announcements:

1. The OpenChain Project will be featured at the World Intellectual Property Forum on the 18th January in Dubai.
   https://goo.gl/njjEPR
2. The OpenChain Japan Work Group has announced its second meeting on the 22nd February at Hitachi Shinagawa.
   https://goo.gl/iPseg1
3. The OpenChain Project will host a Face-to-Face on the 5th March at the Open Source Leadership Summit, Sonoma Valley.
   https://goo.gl/1y93MM
4. The OpenChain Project will be featured in a keynote on the 19th to 23rd March at Linaro Connect in Hong Kong.
   https://goo.gl/cukxwq
5. The OpenChain Project will be featured in a talk at an event hosted by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, on the 22nd of March in London, England.
   https://goo.gl/ZPiqsw
6. The OpenChain Japan Work Group has announced its second meeting on the 19th April at Panasonic Osaka.
   https://goo.gl/z5dJTs
7. The OpenChain Project will be featured in a keynote on June 13th to 14th at the FOSS Backstage conference in Berlin, Germany.
   https://goo.gl/vfVaLq

Keep track of all our events here:
https://www.openchainproject.org/events

OpenChain Accessibility

The OpenChain Project has begin to plan outreach activities in Taiwan as an outcome of a meeting held with representatives of the Open Culture Foundation (Taipei) on the 27th of December. Further information about the meeting can be found here:
https://goo.gl/yEidJ2
The key outcome is that OCF and OpenChain plan to hold an OpenChain Curriculum workshop during Q1 or early Q2 2018. Watch this space for further details.

The OpenChain Project is also delighted to announce that our reference flowcharts are now available in Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
You can obtain the reference flowcharts in Simplified Chinese here:
https://goo.gl/excGyh
You can obtain the reference flowcharts in Traditional Chinese here:
https://goo.gl/pK8pVj

These build on our previous releases of the OpenChain Specification in Simplified and Traditional Chinese. You can obtain these and all our other translations at this URL:
https://www.openchainproject.org/translations

OpenChain Outreach

The OpenChain Project has been featured in an interview with Shane Coughlan, Project Director, on the OWASP 24/7 Podcast. The long-form interview covers the background of the project, our current status and our goals for 2018. It provides a simple, clear way to explain OpenChain to potential stakeholders. You can access it here:
https://goo.gl/yU9NHo

Coming next

In the next month you can expect the OpenChain Project to fix the dates for our increased Taiwanese outreach, you can expect to see the first results from our activity to expand the community of conformance, and you will see the emergence of reference material to help frame the types of process that might be useful for inbound and outbound software. As always we welcome feedback and contributions from all parties. You can contact Shane Coughlan, the Project Director, at any time.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2018 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. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.