News

Special Seminar to Discuss The OpenChain Project in Seoul

SEOUL, May 30, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was discussed today at a special seminar hosted by BKL law office in Seoul, Korea to a select audience of major companies involved in consumer electronics, telecommunications and internet services. The OpenChain Project, hosted by The Linux Foundation®, is the industry standard for managing open source software license compliance across the supply chain. 

“We are delighted to see word spreading about the OpenChain Project, the OpenChain Specification and OpenChain Conformance ,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “With the recent launch of the OpenChain Project’s Onboarding Handout, Onboarding Slides and our Online Self-Certification it is easier than ever to build increased trust around open source compliance in the supply chain.”

The OpenChain Project identifies key recommended processes for effective open source management. The 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.

More information is available from the OpenChain Project website at www.openchainproject.org. Companies of all sizes are invited to review the OpenChain Project, to use the free Online Self-Certification, and to support building a web of trust for open source compliance across the global supply chain.

Additional Resources

• Specification: https://www.openchainproject.org/spec
• Online Self-Certification: https://www.openchainproject.org/conformance
• Curriculum: https://www.openchainproject.org/curriculum
• FAQ: https://www.openchainproject.org/faq

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 commercial 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.

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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 Contact

Dan Brown

The Linux Foundation

pr@linuxfoundation.org

OpenChain on IRC

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, May 26, 2017 — The OpenChain Project now has an informal presence on FreeNode. Please note that this is not a formal method of obtaining information or help about OpenChain but it is a way to potentially connect with fellow project members. Kudos to Beth at Togán Labs for helping set us up.

You can join our IRC channel with three steps:

1. Visit https://webchat.freenode.net
2. Choose a nickname and enter #openchain as your channel
3. Click connect

Want to join in our main community discussion? Join the OpenChain main mailing list.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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.

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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 Launches Onboarding Material Beta

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, May 25, 2017 — The OpenChain Project has launched new onboarding handouts and slides into public beta. This material is designed to help companies of all sizes understand and engage with our mission of making Open Source compliance simple, effective and efficient throughout the supply chain.

Everyone is welcome to contribute to the evolution of these documents to help ensure they provide the maximum utility for existing and future stakeholders in the Open Source eco-system.

The OpenChain Onboarding Document 1.0 Beta:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nJGAxzJggSvNtfUvWCWWKCXmR-rMTPOpj7cSYbhemGM/edit?usp=sharing

The OpenChain Onboarding Slides 1.0 Beta:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PiCkx17RaByYbF2BkEOXQWfkp1SlLrY_HPcJV0NKzRE/edit?usp=sharing

Want to join in our discussion? Join the OpenChain main mailing list.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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.

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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 Specification 1.1 Deep Dive in Linux Weekly News

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, May 18, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was featured in an article entitled ‘Inside the OpenChain 1.1 specification’ in Linux Weekly News. This is a sister article to LWN’s coverage of the OpenChain Specification 1.1 release.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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.

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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 Featured in Linux Weekly News

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, May 18, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was featured in an article entitled ‘License compliance in the open-source supply chain’ in Linux Weekly News. This is part of the media coverage of the OpenChain Specification 1.1 release. Jake Edge of LWN was at our launch speech at the Legal Network Legal and Licensing Workshop in Barcelona and provided detailed coverage.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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.

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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 Launches Monthly Newsletter

The OpenChain newsletter can be accessed online or obtained in PDF format via the OpenChain website on the 15th of each month: https://www.openchainproject.org/newsletter

OpenChain Featured in Linux Magazine

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, May 1, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was featured in an article entitled ‘OpenChain Offers Open Source Specification, Education, and Conformance‘ in Linux Magazine. This is part of the media coverage of the OpenChain Specification 1.1 release. The root of the article was a discussion between Shane Coughlan and Bruce Byfield conducted the week before we went live.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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.

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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 Featured in Computer Weekly

SAN FRANCISCO, United States, May 1, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was featured in an article entitled ‘Linux foundation specification for open software supply chain compliance‘ in Computer Weekly. This is part of the media coverage of the OpenChain Specification 1.1 release and marks the second major story directly related to our launch announcement.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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 Featured in Enterprise Systems Journal

BARCELONA, Spain (Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop), April 28, 2017 — The OpenChain Project was featured in an article entitled ‘Open Source Supply Chain Spec Released‘ on the Enterprise Systems Journal site. This is part of the media coverage of the OpenChain Specification 1.1 release and underlines the growing awareness and understanding building around supply chain compliance issues.

About The OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM Holdings, Cisco, GitHub, Harman International, HPE, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

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 commercial 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.

BARCELONA, Spain (Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop), April 27, 2017 — The Linux Foundation® today announced the OpenChainTM Specification 1.1 and an accompanying Online Self-Certification service. These allow organizations of every size to ensure consistent compliance management processes in the open source supply chain. The OpenChain Project is proud to welcome Siemens, Qualcomm, Pelagicore and Wind River as the first four organizations to self-certify to the OpenChain Specification 1.1.

The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish best practices for effective management of open source software compliance. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. The OpenChain Project has three Work Teams that collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations. For additional information about the project and a list of supporting organizations, visit https://www.openchainproject.org/.

“Today OpenChain evolves from being a refined, active project into a standard ready for broad market adoption,” said Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Thanks to the hard work of our contributors we have exceptional new services to offer the community. Our improved Specification makes understanding compliance processes easier. Our free Online Self-Certification makes reviewing these requirements simpler. Our refined Curriculum makes using best practices accessible to everyone.”

The OpenChain Project builds trust in open source by making things simpler, more efficient and more consistent. The Specification creates trust between organizations. The Conformance allows new organizations to join the circle of trust. The Curriculum supports implementation by entities of any size. The result is that open source becomes predictable, understandable and optimized for internal and external supply chains of any type.

“The OpenChain Project is about open source compliance across the many entities in the modern IT supply chain,” said Kate Stewart, Senior Director of Strategic Programs, The Linux Foundation. “The long-established SPDX Project addresses the question of ‘how do you trust the contents of a software package?’ The OpenChain Project addresses the question of ‘how do you trust companies in a supply chain?’ The updated OpenChain material and Online Self-Certification provide the best answer in the market.”

Transparent Compliance Processes Build Trust

“We want to make open source compliance as accessible as possible to all sizes of organizations, and allow everyone to participate in an efficient supply chain ecosystem that allows process transparency and importantly–compliance with open source licenses,” said Dave Marr, Chair of the OpenChain Governing Board and Vice President, Legal of Qualcomm Technologies. “By defining the criteria for what we mean by good compliance processes, we create the basis for each of us to trust the compliance work done by each other.”

“Organizations can only build trust in other entities when they have the opportunity to demonstrate the way they are handling open source software meets the criteria of a good compliance process,” said Dr. Miriam Ballhausen, OpenChain Conformance Work Team Lead. “With the Online Self-Certification Web App, the OpenChain Project created a tool that allows organizations to demonstrate just that and potential partners to check their suppliers’ OpenChain conformance.”

“Today most successful commercial software solutions are built using open source software,” noted Mark Gisi, Wind River’s Director of Open Source Programs and OpenChain Specification Team Lead. “The OpenChain Specification provides the trust and assurance that an organization is able to effectively manage the open source from which their solutions are comprised. The latest version of the Specification represents the work of more than a hundred contributors. It is from this collaborative effort we obtain the assurance the specification defines the requirements every quality compliance program must satisfy.”

Additional Resources

• Specification: https://www.openchainproject.org/spec
• Online Self-Certification: https://www.openchainproject.org/conformance
• Curriculum: https://www.openchainproject.org/curriculum
• FAQ: https://www.openchainproject.org/faq

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 commercial 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.