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Shane Coughlan

Shane Coughlan 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. Shane has extensive knowledge of Open Source governance, internal process development, supply chain management and community building. His experience includes engagement with the enterprise, embedded, mobile and automotive industries.

OpenChain Specification 1.2 in Korean

By News

The OpenChain Project is proud to announce that the latest version of the OpenChain Specification is available in Korean. The OpenChain Specification 1.2 is the simplest, quickest way for any company to identify and adopt the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program. It is supported by reference material to help people fill in process gaps, with our newly announced Korean training slides being an example.

Get the Specification

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OpenChain Specification 1.2 in Italian

By News

The OpenChain Project is delighted to announce that the latest version of the OpenChain Specification is available in Italian. The OpenChain Specification 1.2 is the simplest, quickest way for any company to identify and adopt the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program. It is supported by reference material to help people fill in process gaps. Anyone can check their conference via our free online app.

Get the Specification

Check out our reference material

Access our free conformance web app

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OpenChain Japan Work Group: Sub-Group in FOSSology and SPDX Meeting

By News

The OpenChain Project Japan Work Group has launched five sub-groups to explicitly build reference materials around topic areas like business workflows, bills of material and tooling. Hitachi hosted the first sub-group meeting covering License Information Exchange on the 29th of January. Topics included practical reviews of production tooling and specification material by companies like Hitachi and Fujitsu.

The team lead is Yuji Nomura. The membership contains Masato Endo, Mutsumi Abe, Shigeki Matsumoto, Hiroki Takemi, Hiroyuki Fukuchi, Atsuhiro Yamaoka, Norio Kobota, Satoru Koizumi, Yoshiko Oouchi, Teppei Asaba, Aasaki Ambai, Yuichi Kusakabe, Yoshiyuki Ito, Teruaki Ito, Toru Taima, Shinsuke Kato and Fumiko Ito. The sub group expects to produce outcomes in English and Japanese over the coming months.

OpenChain @ OSS Seminar in Osaka, 1st March

By News

The OpenChain Project will be represented by Kato San, one of our community volunteers from Panasonic, at the OSS Seminar in Osaka hosted by Grape Systems. He will be running session three, an exploration of our project and goals. Description in Japanese below.

セクション3 【パナソニック株式会社 加藤慎介 氏】

OSSコンプライアンスにおける企業間の連携活動 (OpenChain プロジェクト)

OSSの活用がますます進む中、OSSライセンスコンプライアンスへの対応プロセス等の構築は、企業がOSSを使った製品販売やサービスリリースをするうえで必須のこととなっています。これまで各企業が独自にプロセス・手法を開発するなどしてきましたが、これらに企業の枠を超えて取り組むプロジェクト(OpenChain)があります。今回は、OpenChainプロジェクトの概要と、日本企業での連携活動についてお話しします。

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OpenChain @ NDS Embedded Linux Cross Forum, 5th February 2019

By News

Fukuchi San from Sony will deliver a keynote on the OpenChain Project at the 8th OSAKA NDS Embedded Linux Cross Forum on the 5th of February. His talk will be followed by sessions by Kusakabe-san from Denso-Ten and Motai-san from Mitsubishi Electric, both OpenChain Japan Work Group members, who will discuss automotive linux and automated testing respectively.

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OpenChain @ OSC Osaka – 26th January 2019

By News

The OpenChain Project was represented at OSC Osaka by our community volunteer Dote San on the 26th of January. Dote San kindly staffed a table discussing the OpenChain Project and related sister projects such as FOSSology. This outreach marks another example of the energy behind our Japanese work group.

Dote San’s activity in Japanese

OpenChain Project Japan WG [License/コンプライアンス]

サプライチェーン間でオープンソースコンプライアンスの信頼関係を
構築するための基準を策定するOpenChain ProjectやFossologyを紹介します。

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OpenChain Newsletter #21

By Monthly Newsletter, News

Newsletter – Issue 21 – January 2019

The OpenChain Project has active bi-weekly calls and a central mailing list that provide the “nuts and bolts” of our community activity. These are joined by various releases of documents and announcements of OpenChain-related events throughout each month. We collect key developments in this newsletter once a month.

Introduction

The OpenChain Project started the year with a strong series of meetings, reference materials launches, and significant localization announcements. In other words, we have begun the year in a very practical manner designed to help explain, support and expand the OpenChain community ahead of our next generation Specification and entry into the formal standardization process, both expected in April.

OpenChain @ Events

The OpenChain Project opened the year with a presentation to the American Bar Association Committee on Open Source Software by David Marr, Vice President, Legal Counsel, Qualcomm Technologies:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/08/aba-committee-on-open-source-software-openchain-2

It was followed by our first workshop in Korea on the 23rd of January, a significant milestone that also saw the formation of the first OpenChain Work Group in the country:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/24/openchain-workshop-in-korea-january-23rd-2019

We held a brief survey at the event which showed:

  • 64% of respondents strongly agree with the goals of the OpenChain Project, 32% agree with the goals.
  • 71% of respondents think OpenChain will be a great help to their companies, 29% think it will be helpful.
  • 80% of respondents plan to continue attending future meetings, 20% believe such meetings are vital and will host them.

This event was immediately followed by a volunteer table at the first open source event of the year in Japan, OSC Osaka. Great thanks are due to Dote San for helping to spread the word:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/29/openchain-osc-osaka-26th-january-2019

On the 29th of January the OpenChain Japan Work Group met to discuss License Information Exchange, a discussion that featured demonstrations of existing systems used by Hitachi and Fujitsu, and discourse focused on ensuring ease of future adoption by other companies:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/29/openchain-japan-work-group-sub-group-in-spdx-meeting

Future events announced include:

OpenChain @ Reference Material

OpenChain released an open source policy template to address multiple requests from entities of all sizes around the world. This template was created by our British partners Moocrofts and Orcro, and represent knowledge learned from practical deployment:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/17/openchain-open-source-policy-template-now-available

Thanks to assistance from our friends at KPMG the OpenChain Project was able to release an M&A Checklist covering open source and our industry standard. This short, targeted document is designed to help companies address the identification of key requirements of quality open source compliance programs in their acquisition targets:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/16/openchain-ma-checklist-version-1-out-now

The OpenChain Japan Work Group continued their prolific release of information with a graphic to explain a reference guideline for exchanging license information in the supply chain:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/09/knowledge-sharing-reference-guideline-for-exchanging-license-information-in-the-supply-chain
and a guide to using SPDX and FOSSology:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/09/knowledge-sharing-how-to-use-spdx-and-fossology-from-the-openchain-japan-work-group

The OpenChain Japan Work Group also released a series of “raw” case studies to describe open source compliance training programs. This are immediately available in English and Japanese and will – at a later date – be professionally formatted as part of a larger case-study program:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/30/raw-case-studies-open-source-compliance-training-program

OpenChain @ Promotional Material

The OpenChain overview slides were given another periodic refresh to help companies and individuals explain OpenChain to third-parties:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/24/openchain-super-short-overview-slide-decks-now-available

OpenChain @ Localization

OpenChain continued its program of internationalization driven by our community of volunteers by announcing the release of the OpenChain Specification 1.2 in Italian thanks to Carlo Piana and Marco Ciurcina:
https://www.openchainproject.org/news/2019/01/29/openchain-specification-1-2-in-italian

This was followed almost immediately by announcement of the OpenChain Specification 1.2 in Korean, and the adjacent release of the OpenChain Reference Training Slides for Specification 1.2 in Korea thanks to the excellent work of Haksung Jang at LG Electronics and Jongbaek Park at BKL:

Summary

Outreach in Korea and improved reference material to help explain options around process content set the tone for an outward-facing, pro-active year that will see OpenChain dramatically expanding its engagement with companies around the world.

License and Trademarks

Copyright 2019 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.

OpenChain Workshop in Korea – January 23rd 2019

By News

The OpenChain Project held its first workshop in Korea on the 23rd of January. This meeting was kindly hosted by LG Electronics and featured attendees from Samsung, Hyundai, SK Telecom and Kakao.

Our post-event survey showed:

  • 64% of respondents strongly agree with the goals of the OpenChain Project, 32% agree with the goals.
  • 71% of respondents think OpenChain will be a great help to their companies, 29% think it will be helpful.
  • 80% of respondents plan to continue attending future meetings, 20% believe such meetings are vital and will host them.
  • 61% of respondents want the meetings to continue on a quarterly format, 26% bi-monthly and 13% once per year.
  • 86% of respondents want a Korean mailing list, 14% would like to use Slack.

Our Korean volunteers will be collaborating with the project team and international work teams to build out support and regular Korean meetings in response to this feedback.

You can check out some of the details in the slides linked below.

OpenChain Quick Overview Slide Decks Now Available

By News

The OpenChain Project​ has been reaching out to a lot companies in Asia. We want to share some of the quick overview slides being used in the hope they might assist with your own internal and external discussions.

How to use OpenChain

OpenChain Membership and Growth

OpenChain as a Standard

OpenChain Japan Work Group

OpenChain Open Source Policy Template Now Available

By News

The OpenChain Project is delighted to announce the release of an Open Source Policy Template for organizations seeking to conform to the OpenChain Specification. This template has been contributed from Moorcrofts Law Firm and Orcro Compliance in the UK and has been extensively reviewed by the OpenChain Project community.

The focus of this template is to help apply the key requirements for a quality open source compliance program. It provides sample policy text that helps organizations select, classify, incorporate and publish open source code with a focus on legal compliance of open source. Companies may need to consider others matters related to business requirements, engineering requirements and inter-organization / inter-project relationships when completing their own open source policy. You can obtain broader reference policy material from the TODO Group, a sister project to OpenChain at the Linux Foundation.

Get The OpenChain Policy Template

Get Broader Reference Material:

Contact The Original Authors