Monday, 28 January 2008

New HP Initiative Promotes Open Source Software Governance

Hewlett Packard has introduced a software governance initiative to help companies address the legal, financial and security risks faced when adopting free and open source software (FOSS).

Traditional corporate policies for managing software assets are often inadequate to address the unique characteristics of free and open source software. During a recent customer engagement, for example, HP discovered three times as many FOSS licenses as the client originally thought it held – 75 versus 25. This left the customer with a choice: implement governance policies to allow the safe use of FOSS or replace the software at an estimated cost of 80 million dollars.

To help enterprise customers mitigate these kinds of risks and realize the full business benefits of free and open source software, HP has introduced FOSSology and FOSSBazaar – the industry’s first open source initiatives dedicated to these goals.

“Companies adopting free and open source software will save money and improve their ability to operate, but they need to understand the license requirements of the programs they use and adopt appropriate governance measures to ensure proper compliance,” said Eben Moglen, founding director, Software Freedom Law Center.

“The principle of ‘share and share alike’ requires governance measures different than those for the protection of proprietary assets, but not more burdensome. Resources like those HP announced today can help businesses understand how to make using free and open source software in a compliant manner very simple, effective and profitable.”

FOSSology is based on the tools HP uses to effectively manage its own use of free and open source software. It is designed to help users address deployment issues such as the acquisition, tracking and licensing of FOSS.

FOSSology’s flexible and open architecture framework, along with detection agents, can help users discover FOSS and related licenses within their own organizations. This toolset is free and downloadable from FOSSology.org for immediate use under the General Public License (GPL) version two.

“The FOSS governance initiative allows HP to share the insight gained from its own experiences managing open source software with other enterprises and the broader FOSS community,” said Christine Martino, vice president, Open Source and Linux Organization, HP.

“As the No. 1 provider of Linux-based systems for nine years straight, HP’s leadership around this initiative underscores its commitment to address the challenge of managing open source software proliferation, while reducing barriers to adoption.”