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OpenChain for Projects

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OpenChain for Projects

BARCELONA, SPAIN– (Apr 26th 2017) –The OpenChain Project has recently been the subject of an opinion piece by Jonas Oberg, Executive Director of Free Software Foundation Europe and a key figure in the European Free and Open Source Software Community. Jonas’ article focuses on how the OpenChain Specification and related material such as the OpenChain Curriculum can be as useful for projects as for commercial entities. His article is entitled ‘Project practices compatible with OpenChain’ and can be found here http://blog.jonasoberg.net/openchain-for-foss-projects/

“We need to foster working relation between those developing free and open source software and those using it; to facilitate compliance and increase trust.” Says Jonas Öberg, Executive Director of FSFE, “The software supply chain starts with the individual project and just as OpenChain has taken inspiration from the practices  of the FOSS community, many of the practices mandated by OpenChain similarly apply for free and open source software projects.”

“OpenChain is for everyone,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “This project was born out of the need for addressing Open Source compliance processes and best practices in the global supply chain. However, the content is not confined to commercial use cases alone. We are really talking about the type of baselines and best practices that benefit all types of stakeholder. By syncing what we do in this space challenges like Open Source compliance will become increasingly easy to address and trust between organizations of all types will become simpler.”

Individuals and organizations of all sizes are welcome to participate in the OpenChain Project. Our Community page is the best starting point and contains all the information needed to join our calls, access our wiki or contact individual Work Team Chairpeople.

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 Revamps FAQ

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OpenChain Revamps FAQ

SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES– (Apr 20th 2017) –The OpenChain Project today announces a revamped Frequently Asked Questions page designed to make participation easier for everyone: https://www.openchainproject.org/faq

“There are three Work Teams in OpenChain: Specification, Conformance and Curriculum,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Volunteers have been working in each of these teams to build out community documentation to help make OpenChain adoption simpler for existing and new community members. The release of our revamped FAQ is the first outcome of their hard work and marks a quiet but important milestone in OpenChain’s development towards broad market adoption.”

Individuals and organizations of all sizes are welcome to participate in the OpenChain Project. Our Community page is the best starting point and contains all the information needed to join our calls, access our wiki or contact individual Work Team Chairpeople.

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 is on GitHub

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OpenChain is on GitHub

SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES– (Apr 17th 2017) –The OpenChain Project today announces a formal presence on GitHub at https://github.com/OpenChain-Project

“OpenChain comes from and supports the Open Source community,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “Our new presence on GitHub provides an easy way for everyone to use, study, share and improve our code and to help with our document translations. It is another step towards making the knowledge and the tools necessary for increased trust and compliance in the global supply chain a reality.”

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 Announces Strategic Advisors

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OpenChain Announces Strategic Advisors

SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES– (Apr 6th 2017) –The OpenChain Project today welcomes Catharina Maracke and Matija Šuklje as its first two Strategic Advisors.

“Catharina and Matija are long-term contributors to FOSS and related aspects of Open Technology and Law,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Program Manager. “I am delighted to have the opportunity to work closely together as we grow OpenChain from a useful, refined project to widely adopted market reality.”

Catharina is an IP/IT lawyer focussing on compliance and related governance questions. With more than 10 years of experience in public licensing schemes and standardisation, Catharina has worked with different stakeholders from the public and private sector to build networks and healthy ecosystems around open access and open source projects. Catharina has served as International Director for Creative Commons, as a Board Member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, and as a Member of the Global Agenda Council on the Intellectual Property System at the World Economic Forum. She is admitted to the bar in Germany.

Matija is an IT lawyer and expert on Open Source licensing and governance. As a long-standing active member of various communities in and around FOSS he holds a deep understanding of both its technical and legal aspects, as well as the social interplay at hand. He has experience from all four sectors – public, business, private, and voluntary – and takes particular pleasure in establishing bridges between the different groups.

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 Takes Center Stage at Bar Association CLE

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OpenChain Takes Center Stage at Bar Association CLE

BOULDER, UNITED STATES– (Mar 30th 2017) –The OpenChain Project will be featured in a talk by Jilayne Lovejoy, Principle Open Source Counsel at ARM and OpenChain Governing Board Member, during a monthly CLE event at the Boulder County Bar Association.

The In-House Counsel and Intellectual Property CLE will take place on the 6th of April between 4 and 5pm at the Zayo Group, 1805 29th St, Boulder. A detailed abstract for Jilayne’s talk has already been published:

Where there is software, there is open source software. In house lawyers are often responsible for managing the risks around their organization’s use of open source software and engagement with open communities. However, effective management of open source software requires a cross-functional approach. This talk will introduce a collaborative effort called OpenChain and describe how this can prevent lawyer and others from “reinventing the wheel” when it comes to open source management. OpenChain was created to address open source software-related friction points in the software supply chain. The vision for the project is to enable a software supply chain where free/open source software (FOSS) is delivered with trusted and consistent compliance information. This is achieved by establishing requirements to achieve effective management of free/open source software (FOSS) for software supply chain participants, such that the requirements and associated collateral are developed collaboratively and openly by representatives from the software supply chain, open source community, and academia.

You can learn more on the Boulder County Bar calendar.

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 Welcomes Shane Coughlan as Program Manager

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OpenChain Welcomes Shane Coughlan as Program Manager

SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES– (Mar 20th 2017) –The Linux Foundation®, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today welcomed Shane Coughlan as the OpenChain Program Manager.

Shane is an expert in communication, security and business development. His professional accomplishments include spearheading the licensing team that elevated Open Invention Network into the largest patent non-aggression community in history, establishing the leading professional network of Open Source legal experts and aligning stakeholders to launch both the first law journal and the first law book dedicated to Open Source. He has extensive knowledge of Open Source governance, internal process development, supply chain management and community building.

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.

Media Contact
Whitney True
The Linux Foundation
PR@linuxfoundation.org

The Linux Foundation Drives Standardization of Open Source Software Supply Chain

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OpenChain™ Project Releases First Specification to Establish Best Practices for Open Source Software Supply Chain

BERLIN, GERMANY– (LinuxCon and ContainerCon Europe) –The Linux Foundation®, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced that the OpenChain Project has established its first set of requirements and best practices for consistent free and open source software (FOSS) management processes in the open source software supply chain. The OpenChain Specification 1.0 aims to facilitate greater quality and consistency of open source compliance to help reduce duplication of effort caused by lack of standardization and transparency throughout professional open source organizations.

Open source is the new norm for software development, evidenced by nearly 70 percent of hiring managers looking to recruit and retain open source professionals within the next six months (see: 2016 Open Source Jobs Survey and Report). From society lifelines such as healthcare networks and financial institutions to in-car entertainment and movie production, open source has become a key software supply chain every major industry is dependent upon. Businesses ranging from startups to enterprises are looking to establish, build and sustain open source projects that support long-term innovation and reduce R&D costs. For open source software to continue to thrive, there must be a common set of requirements and best practices established to ensure consistency of use and quality of software. Individuals and organizations reliant on open source software must also have access to training resources and expertise such as licensing and compliance to uphold the integrity of code.

“Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe, including the world’s largest companies, leverage open source software, so we need to work together to support best practices for software license compliance throughout a supply chain,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation. “Licensing, best practices, training, certification and other resources are needed to scale open source and protect the innovation built on top of it. The OpenChain Project is taking a major step forward by helping create software supply chains that are both efficient and compliant.”

The OpenChain Project is a community effort to establish common best practices for effective management of open source software and compliance with open source software licenses. The project aims to help reduce costs, duplication of effort, and ease friction points in the software supply. Today the OpenChain Project releases its first specification that defines a common set of requirements and best practices for open source organizations to follow in an attempt to encourage an ecosystem of transparent sharing and open source software compliance. The goals and requirements of the OpenChain Compliance Specification 1.0 include:

  • Document FOSS policy and training for software staff;
  • Assign responsibility for achieving compliance via designated FOSS-related roles;
  • Review and approval of FOSS content;
  • Deliver FOSS content documentation and artefacts such as copyright notices, licenses, source code, etc;
  • Understand FOSS community engagement including legal approval, business rationale, technical review of code, community interaction and contribution requirements; and
  • Adhere to OpenChain requirements for certification.

The OpenChain Project has also established three Work Teams to collaborate on future refinements of the OpenChain Specification, to develop training materials and create conformance criteria for organizations. The project will also begin the roll out of a self-conformance program this year.

Platinum Members of the OpenChain Project include Adobe, ARM, Cisco, Harman, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Qualcomm, Siemens and Wind River.

Supporting Comments

Adobe
“Open source as a development philosophy is acknowledged to both increase innovation and drive adoption. Adobe is an active participant in open source efforts and supports open activities by contributing to existing projects, releasing code as open source, and providing open access and conversations. Starting with the contribution of Tamarin to the Mozilla Foundation in 2006, Adobe has released hundreds of pieces of technology under open source licenses, and knows first-hand the value of establishing known, trusted standards. At Adobe, the Web is not only about the technology and code but also about the content and its delivery, and we support OpenChain’s efforts to standardize and improve the quality and consistency of open source for everyone.”
James Oh, Vice President, Associate General Counsel, Adobe

ARM
“A large number of global businesses rely on open source software so it must be delivered with trusted and consistent compliance information. The OpenChain Project will help to meet this objective by providing a collaborative framework for companies to effectively manage open source software, promote best practices and build confidence among ecosystem partners. ARM, as a founder member, supports the initiative as it will improve efficiency and trust across the supply chain.”
Hobson Bullman, general manager, Technology Services Group, ARM

Harman
“The OpenChain Project is helping define best practices and establish consistency throughout the open source software supply chain. This effort is critical to ensuring greater quality of code and help limit duplication of effort so that development efforts remain focused and innovative.”
Alyssa Harvey Dawson, Vice President, Global Intellectual Property, Harman

Qualcomm
“We all know that the open source ecosystem today is a huge driver of growth for our industry, yet in the area of open source compliance we are all still plagued by uncertainty over code pedigree, redundant work being performed at each tier in the distribution chain, and persistent inefficiency — all perpetuated by the lack of confidence in the compliance work done by each other. OpenChain creates a foundation for that confidence. The adoption of OpenChain by our industry will improve compliance while at the same time increasing efficiency and lowering costs.”
Roger Martin, Senior Vice President, Chief IP Strategist, Qualcomm

Siemens
“OpenChain is addressing one of the biggest challenges the software industry is facing — ensuring transparency and license compliance through the software supply chain. OpenChain will help to achieve license compliance through the entire supply chain by additionally lowering the costs. Thus, the OpenChain Project is of great importance for the entire software ecosystem.”
Oliver Fendt, R&D Strategy Team Leader Open Source Governance, Siemens AG

Wind River
“As the importance of open source in modern day software solutions continues to grow, the OpenChain standard can help establish the required trust among software supply chain participants. OpenChain is a logical step to foster greater license compliance, reduced cost and even greater success through the creation and use of open source software. We look forward to advancing this initiative through our continued, active participation in the open source community.”
Dinyar Dastoor, General Manager, Operating Systems at Wind River

To learn more about the OpenChain Project and to participate in early discussions, please visit: http://openchain.lfprojects.linuxfoundation.org.

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.

Media Contact
Whitney True
The Linux Foundation
PR@linuxfoundation.org