News

The OpenChain Japan Work Group has run an active licensing sub-work group throughout 2019. Their activity has been focused on practical applications of a streamlined Software Bill of Materials using core attributes of SPDX. Now that the work is advanced, collaboration with the SDPX Project is fully established, and we are heading into production it is time to highlight the individuals behind this initiative.

Great Thanks are Due To

• Toru TAIMA
• Yuji NOMURA
• Yoshiyuki ITO
• Yoshiko OUCHI
• Norio KOBOTA
• Hiroyuki FUKUCHI

Taima-san from Pioneer is the senior contributor to this effort who defined the initial fields based on a practical business use case.

Nomura-san from Hitachi, Ito-san from Renesas and Ouchi-san from Fujitsu proposed improvements to the SPDX Lite description and format.

Kobota-san from Sony took lead on confirming full compatibility between SPDX and SPDX Lite.

And of course Fukuchi-san from Sony proposed the original concept, formed the sub-work group, and wrote the proposal of SPDX Lite.

In addition to these contributors all the members of “license info” sub-group contributed to the work and final go-to-market activity.

Learn More

• https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/openchain/jwg_lincense_sg_page

The 5th meeting of the OpenChain Korean Work Group scheduled to be hosted by Kakao in Seoul on the 19th of March has been cancelled. The cancellation is due to COVID-19 and joins recent cancellations of face-to-face work group meetings in China and Japan.

We are exploring the possibility of holding the meeting via teleconference. Most details to follow soon.

More Information on the Korea Mailing List

• https://lists.openchainproject.org/g/korea-wg

DLA Piper’s Open Source In-house Counsel Discussion series is managed by and for in-house counsel, providing them with a venue to discuss open source legal issues under the Chatham House rule. Following on our initial meeting in Fall 2019, we will holding OSS In-house Counsel Discussions every quarter, alternating between morning and afternoon to enable participation from Europe and Asia, respectively.

We will explore the following topics (thanks to our volunteers!), as well as other late-breaking issues:

• Recent Developments in OSS – led by Mark Radcliffe, Chair of OSS Group,  DLA Piper
• GPL Dispute: Ubiquiti Networks vs. Cambium Networks.
  These two companies are both raising claims about GPL violations. This case and the Versata line of cases demonstrate that claims around GPL violations are now being brought in suits between commercial entities, as well as highlight the importance of compliance with license obligations – led by Nissa Strottman, Vice President, VP, Product and Operations.
• OSS and Cloud.
  Cloud-based platforms and software offerings – whether application, computer or storage – are among the fastest-growing areas of the industry. We will discuss the different legal implications based on different distribution or deployment models – led by Christine Lam, Director of IP at Netapp.
• OpenChain Update. 
  The OpenChain Project is very active with major companies such as Microsoft becoming certified. The OpenChain Project expects to receive ISO certification soon. Shane will discuss his predictions about the effect of ISO corticationled by Shane Coughlan, General Manager, OpenChain at Linux Foundation.

Our Regular OpenChain Third Monday call was held today at 5pm Pacific. We had attendees from Korea, Japan and the USA. This call caught everyone up with the latest news and provided a forum to discuss next steps in our conformance, reference and other material.

Watch the Call

Get the Slides

OpenChain Third Monday Work Team Call Agenda 2020-02-17 from Shane Coughlan

The OpenChain Project periodically releases overview slides with speaker minutes to help explain our activities to organizations. These slides are designed to support local speakers with extensive notes. You can download them via SlideShare. Please feel free to share these slides with everyone who may be interested.

View the Slides

A Brief Introduction to OpenChain – February 2020 from Shane Coughlan

On January 25 2020 OpenChain was featured in an article in the Corporate Review magazine. This article focused on the recent announcement of Lyra Infosystems becoming an official OpenChain Project partners.

Read the Article

Linux Foundation’s OpenChain project welcomes Lyra Infosystems as new Partner!

Yuichi Kusakabe kindly made his slides from a recent global Automotive Work Group meeting available.

Review and Download the Slides on Slideshare

OpenChain AutomotiveWG(OSS license tools() from Yuichi Kusakabe

On Thursday, 13 February 2020, OpenChain was featured in an article in the CIO Review India. The primary focus of the article was related to welcoming Lyra Infosystems are an official partner.

“We are excited and delighted to be part of the OpenChain Ecosystem to offer OpenChain conformance services, Open Source Policy, Process, Compliance consultation, Legal Remediation, and Audit services to organizations around the globe. Lyra Infosystems is an Open Source promoter, user, provider and a services organization with more than 280+ customers across geographies, domains, industries and technology verticals,” says Naba Magrabi, Open Source Senior Consultant for Lyra Infosystems.

Read the Article

https://www.cioreviewindia.com/news/linux-foundation-s-openchain-project-welcomes-lyra-infosystems-as-new-partner-nid-5330-cid-130.html

This is a record of the OpenChain Project Work Team Call from 02-17-2020.

Get the agenda slides

• https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/_media/openchain/openchain_agenda_2020-02-17.pdf

Watch the video minutes

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Is6Vc-7AeY

All OpenChain call outcomes are archived on our wiki

• https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/openchain/minutes

Request for Comments: One Slide Summary of Where OpenChain Fits in Workflows from Shane Coughlan

Fukuchi San from Sony has provided us with a draft outlining where the various sections of the OpenChain Specification fit into company process workflows. This is building on a document that was previously available for OpenChain Specification 1.2. The goal is to provide a quick framing of our industry standard for organizations considering adoption, considering conformance, or managing these activities. 

We would like to collect feedback on this document as it is likely to disseminate widely throughout our community in various languages over time. Email our General Manager (scoughlan@linuxfoundation.org) or any of our mailing lists to provide comments and suggestions.