This whitepaper is a practical guide for organizations on how best to use open source code in products and services, and participate in open source communities, in a legal and responsible way.
White Paper main segments
- How to structure an open source management program - Set an open source compliance strategy - Create compliance policies, tools, and processes - When and how to involve executives and legal experts - How to train and incentivize developers to comply and participate in open source - Common compliance tools and processes - Open source license management best practices
Conclusion
There are several benefits to achieving open source compliance. Companies that maintain a steady-state compliance program often gain a technical advantage, since compliant software portfolios are easier to service, test, upgrade, and maintain. In addition, compliance activities can also help identify crucial pieces of open source that are in use across multiple products and parts of an organization, and/or are highly strategic and beneficial to that organization. Conversely, compliance can demonstrate the costs and risks associated with using open source components, as they will go through multiple rounds of review.
A healthy compliance program can deliver major benefits when working with external communities as well.
Full White Paper
Open Source Compliance in the Enterprise - By The Linux Foundation