San Francisco (ip-192.com): A new Open Compliance Program (OPC) unveiled by the Linux Foundation should help developers to ensure compliance and due diligence. The software includes an assessment checklist, software tools to monitor open source software usage, and specialized training programs.
"As Linux has proliferated up and down the product supply chain, so has the complexity of managing compliance," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. "Our mission is to enable the expansion of free and open source software, so we created this program to give companies the information, tools and processes they need to get the most out of their investment, while maintaining compliance with the licenses governing the software.”
A dependency checker capable of identifying code combinations at the dynamic and static link level will be included in the initial release. A Bill of Material (BoM) Difference Checker will enable companies to identify changed source code components. The set of programs allows companies to evaluate compliance in comparison to top tier best compliance practices, according to the Linux Foundation.
The OPC was triggered by the use of open source code for mobile devices. The recent explosion of applications build for Smartphone's based on Google's Android motivated companies to fast-track their own Linux-powered devices. "You have a really complicated supply chain, where you might get source code coming from lots of different places, whether it is a chipset vendor, a mobile handset provider or embedded software vendor," said Zemlin. "Managing open source license compliance is complicated."
The array of tools and services included in the OPC should allow companies to get up to speed. Adobe, AMD, Cisco Systems, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Novell, Samsung, and Sony, among others, have already put their support behind the new initiative. Official launch date for the package is the fourth quarter of 2010.
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