Open Source Program Office

An Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is a physical or virtual department formed by subject-matter experts involved in free- and open software and open standards management and operations in the organization.

Details

OSPOs are supported by numerous companies such as Yahoo!,[1] Goldman Sachs,[2] Bloomberg L.P., Comcast or Porsche,[3] universities like Trinity College Dublin[4] or the Johns Hopkins University.[5]

The tasks of an OSPO include:

  • Advocacy for free software within the organization.[6][3]
    • Internal and external community management and support of the respective maintainer of the software projects.
    • Maintenance of public version controls.
  • Release for use of free software.
    • Documentation of dependencies in used or included free software to prevent vulnerability or software license violations from third-party software.
    • Creation and monitoring of license compliance policies of free-software licenses in deployed applications or published products.[7][6][3]
  • Corporate communication the open source strategy inside and outside the organization[7] and contact with other OSPOs.
  • Development of Business models for open-source software.[7]

References

  1. ^ "The Open Source Program Office". Open Source Guide. Archived from the original on 2023-05-17. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
  2. ^ Goldman Sachs' Open Source Program Office, One Year In
  3. ^ a b c "The Evolution of the Open Source Program Office (OSPO)". www.linuxfoundation.org. Archived from the original on 2023-04-29. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
  4. ^ "Open Source Program Office - Trinity Innovation - Trinity College Dublin". www.tcd.ie.
  5. ^ "Open Source Programs Office (OSPO)". Archived from the original on 2023-05-29. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
  6. ^ a b "Why have an open source program office?". www.redhat.com. Archived from the original on 2023-05-04. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
  7. ^ a b c github.com/todogroup/ospodefinition.org Archived 2023-04-30 at the Wayback Machine Open Source Program Office (OSPO) definition of todogroup
  • ospo-alliance.org Association of OSPOs, including the Eclipse Foundation
  • todogroup.org OSPO community of practice formed by member organizations and individual contributors
  • CURIOSS OSPO community for those working in University and Research Institution OSPOs
  • opensource.com - A guide to setting up your Open Source Program Office (OSPO) for success
  • joinup.ec.europa.eu - The Rise of the Open Source Program Offices (OSPO)