The OpenChain Telco Work Group has released an updated OpenChain Telco SBOM Guide Validator to support Version 1.1 of the Telco SBOM Guide. The guide is an industry-specific but easily adaptable guide to addressing SBOM quality in the supply chain. The validator allows you to automate checks of conformance to the guide.
Learn more about the updated validator in the latest meeting below.
Everyone is welcome to be part of this study group! OpenChain has free, open access to all its work groups and study groups. Just turn up, and listen in, and contribute comments, ideas and suggestions.
We held our regular workshop for the OpenChain AI Work Group on May 6th. During this meeting some important decisions were made. The Work Group attendees agreed that initial drafting on the AI SBOM Compliance Guide is now substantially complete, and there will be two next steps:
The work will be taken to the OpenChain Governing Board Q2 meeting (25th June) for formal approval to start a public comment period.
If approval is given, the guide will go into a six week public comment period, and after that period will move into a publication process.
You can follow and contribute to the work of the OpenChain AI Work Group through its dedicated mailing list. This is open to everyone regardless of industry vertical or speciality. You will find it here:
View the original version of this article on LinkedIn
An introduction from Shane Coughlan, General Manager at OpenChain Project:
Our colleagues over at Software Heritage have long worked towards creating a universal archive of all software. Part of this work relates to identifying software effectively, and to accomplish this they developed the SoftWare Hash IDentifier specification, which has now been released an international standard. You will find it as ISO/IEC 18670 via the ISO website.
Because of the potential of this new standard to positively impact the global open source supply chain, and to help address compliance matters of all types, we want to ensure our community is fully aware of the release, its meaning, and how to learn more.
A few words from Roberto Di Cosmo, Director at Software Heritage:
A major milestone has been reached in the landscape of digital infrastructure: the Software Hash Identifier (SWHID) has officially been published on April 23rd 2025 as the ISO/IEC international standard 18670! 🎉 🔗 Official ISO Listing 📘 Free Public Specification
A Universal Identifier for Software
Inspired by well established practice in distributed software development, almost ten years ago Software Heritage created a “Software Heritage Identifier” that is used in its archive to track over 50 billion software artifact. Today, this identifier schema has now grown into a globally recognized, community-driven standard. Rebranded as the Software Hash Identifier, SWHID is designed for universal adoption across archives, regulatory frameworks, research, industry, and beyond.
This name shift reflects a deeper transformation: from an internal archival tool to a public digital infrastructure for all—a way to uniquely and verifiably reference software artifacts across contexts and borders.
Why It Matters
Software is at the core of innovation, but referencing it reliably has always been a challenge. SWHID addresses this by offering:
🧾 Intrinsic, verifiable, and immutable identifiers
🔍 Long-term traceability of code, even if moved or renamed
📚 Reproducibility in science and industry
🛡️ Support for compliance and cybersecurity regulation
With the adoption of ISO/IEC 18670, we now have a globally accepted framework for identifying software—just as we have ISBNs for books or DOIs for papers.
Community at the Core
This success is the result of years of collaboration within the broader software preservation and cybersecurity community. The journey included:
A dedicated core team dedicated to the maintenance of the specification
This is a shared major acheivement—for everyone committed to making software a first-class, preservable, and referenceable citizen of our digital ecosystem.
SWHID in Action: Strengthening Cybersecurity
Software traceability is increasingly critical to regulatory compliance and cyber resilience. Our recent whitepaper outlines how SWHIDs contribute to this vision:
This work supports efforts like the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act by providing a concrete, open standard for identifying software components.
SWHID in Action: Enabling Reproducibility in Open Science
In scientific research, reproducibility depends on more than just data—it relies on exactly replicating the software used in analyses. SWHIDs provide a rock-solid way to archive and reference the precise version of code used in experiments.
Explore the guidelines on how to archive and cite software with SWHID to support reproducible science: 🔗 How to archive and reference code
As AI systems become increasingly influential, the demand for transparency in the data and software used to train them is growing. SWHIDs offer a solution by enabling verifiable references to source code, contributing to more accountable and auditable AI.
The SWHID journey doesn’t end here. Now that it’s an international standard, we invite everyone—developers, educators, researchers, policy makers—to adopt it, build on it, and share it.
✅ Explore the spec on swhid.org or in the 🔗 Official ISO Listing 🌐 Visit the official site: swhid.org 📬 Include it in your toolchains and supply chain policy
Together, we’ve transformed a powerful idea into a global asset. Here’s to a future where all software is identifiable, referenceable, and preserved.
The OpenChain Project took part in the fourth Software Heritage Community Workshop, held in Paris on January 30, 2025.
This poster highlights some of the outcomes from our collaborative workgroup, where a diverse range of stakeholders (OpenChain / CERN / Software Heritage / Academia) discussed how to measure impact when we extract knowledge from software assets:
What is Software Heritage? It is an international non-profit infrastructure supported by UNESCO and Inria, collects, preserves, and shares all software source code for industry, research, culture, and society. They recently released ISO/IEC 18670, which specifies the identifier used to ensure all software, everywhere, can be tracked.
Open source software providers are facing a triple threat: tightening US and EU regulations, rising IP litigation, and the risks introduced by Gen AI. Soon, your board—and your customers and suppliers— might be asking that you have specific insurance that actually covers OSS-related liabilities. But, does such insurance exist? Does it work? And how should it work?
Historically, insurers have struggled to grasp OSS risks, offering inadequate or unclear coverage. Now, a new wave of insurance solutions is emerging, informed by OpenChain standards and best practices.
Watch the Webinar:
More About Our Webinars:
This event is part of the overarching OpenChain Project Webinar Series. Our series highlights knowledge from throughout the global OpenChain eco-system. Participants are discussing approaches, processes and activities from their experience, providing a free service to increase shared knowledge in the supply chain. Our goal, as always, is to increase trust and therefore efficiency. No registration or costs involved. This is user companies producing great informative content for their peers.
The OpenChain Telco Work Group has released Version 1.1 of the Telco SBOM Guide, an industry-specific but easily adaptable guide to addressing SBOM quality in the supply chain. Learn more about the release and what it means in their latest meeting.
Everyone is welcome to be part of this study group! OpenChain has free, open access to all its work groups and study groups. Just turn up, and listen in, and contribute comments, ideas and suggestions.
As always, we focused on the question of “how do we use SBOMs in production, large-scale and complex supply chains?” We are dealing with the reality of supply chains with many participants who have different levels of skill, use different formats, and perhaps follow different regulations or policies.
In this meeting, we looked at the question of how someone could approach building a cross-industry, cross-format guide to SBOM Quality. The mental model was “how would we use the Telco SBOM Quality Guide as a starting point,” and our Japanese sub-group prepared a proof-of-concept.
Learn More About This Study Group:
Our SBOM Study Group brings all our various SBOM-related activities together and helps answer the question of “how do we use SBOMs in production, large-scale and complex supply chains?” Our original kick-off call has all the details.
Get Involved:
Everyone is welcome to be part of this study group! OpenChain has free, open access to all its work groups and study groups. Just turn up, and listen in, and contribute comments, ideas and suggestions.
This webinar provided an introduction to DeepSeek, covering its technical highlights, history, the company, and their vision. Our presenter was Jerry Tan, a long-time contributor to the open source ecosystem in China, and Executive Vice Secretary-General of the China Open Source Promotion Union (COPU).
Watch the Webinar:
More About Our Webinars:
This event is part of the overarching OpenChain Project Webinar Series. Our series highlights knowledge from throughout the global OpenChain eco-system. Participants are discussing approaches, processes and activities from their experience, providing a free service to increase shared knowledge in the supply chain. Our goal, as always, is to increase trust and therefore efficiency. No registration or costs involved. This is user companies producing great informative content for their peers.
Amazon is the latest company to join the OpenChain Project as a Platinum Member and to take a seat at the Governing Board and Steering Committee. This highlights their unwavering commitment to leadership in open source technology, process management and in building trusted supply chains.
“At Amazon, we believe in strengthening the open source ecosystem through collaboration and shared best practices,” said Nithya Ruff, Director of Amazon’s Open Source Program Office. “By joining the OpenChain Project, we’re committed to contributing our experience across cloud services and consumer devices to support and evolve industry standards. We look forward to working with the OpenChain community to make supply chain collaboration easier and more effective for the industry.”
“Amazon pioneered modern digital management of complex supply chains at massive scale,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “Their engagement with the OpenChain Project, and more broadly with all aspect of open source process management, underlines the vital role that open standards and open communities play in building a more trusted supply chain. We look forward to benefiting from their thought-leadership as OpenChain enters the next stage of its evolution.”
About the OpenChain Project
The OpenChain Project has an extensive global community of over 1,000 companies collaborating to make the supply chain quicker, more effective and more efficient. It maintains OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230, the international standard for open source license compliance programs and OpenChain ISO/IEC 18974, the industry standard for open source security assurance programs.
About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, OpenChain, and more. The Linux Foundation focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.
Today we are delighted to share the news that ZF Group has implemented an ISO/IEC 5230 conformant program.
This significant achievement underscores their commitment to excellence, innovation, and adherence to the highest standards of compliance and best practices in their open-source initiatives. As noted by Sarah Moser of the ZF Group team, implementing the ISO/IEC 5230 standard represents a crucial step in fostering a culture of transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
ZF Group’s conformance was via third-party certification in collaboration with TIMETOACT. The approach they took, their motivations and their practical solutions will be highlight in a forthcoming OpenChain webinar and case study.
Huge thanks to Sarah, the ZF OSPO team and also Simon Pletschacher at TIMETOACT for not only making this happen, but helping to communicate it widely to inspire others.
About ZF Group
ZF is a global technology company represented with 161 production locations in 30 countries. With some 161,600 employees worldwide, ZF reported sales of €41.4 billion in fiscal year 2024.
Founded in 1915, ZF has evolved from a supplier specializing in aviation technology to a global mobility technology company.
Group shareholders include the Zeppelin Foundation, administered by the City of Friedrichshafen, holding 93.8 percent of shares, and the Dr. Jürgen and Irmgard Ulderup Foundation, Lemförde, with 6.2 percent.
About the OpenChain Project:
The OpenChain Project has an extensive global community of over 1,000 companies collaborating to make the supply chain quicker, more effective and more efficient. It maintains OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230, the international standard for open source license compliance programs and OpenChain ISO/IEC 18974, the industry standard for open source security assurance programs.
About The Linux Foundation:
The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, OpenChain, and more. The Linux Foundation focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.
