Four Steps to Creating an Effective Open Source Policy

Executive Briefing:
Four Steps to Creating an Effective
Open Source Policy

Greg Olson
Senior Director, OSS Management
Olliance Group

Speaker

Greg Olson
Senior Director, Open Source Management

 Over 30 years of software industry experience
 Managed delivery of over 150 engagements at Olliance Group
 Founder and chairman of Sendmail, one of the first commercial
open source companies
 VP of Strategy and Business Development, Sybase
 CTO, Britton Lee, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Black Duck Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2

Olliance Group, a Black Duck Company

 Leading global FOSS strategy
development, planning, and
implementation firm
– Business
– Technology
– Governance
– Community

 Ten years, 500+ engagements
 Founder and host of the Open Source Think Tank
– See thinktank.olliancegroup.com
 Acquired by Black Duck Software – December 2010


Agenda

 Why Use Open Source Software?
 How is the use of Open Source best managed?
 The Policy Development Process
 Implementation
 Summary and Conclusions


Why Use Open Source Software?

 Best-in-class software in some areas is OSS
 Your product must interoperate with other OSS, e.g. Linux
 Your customers favor or even require OSS
 OSS came with a corporate acquisition
 It is a lower cost alternative to traditional commercial packages
 You will need to customize externally sourced software
 Faster time to market by avoiding development and testing of new code
 Lower development costs by using free, already de-bugged code
 Lower code maintenance costs by taking advantage of community
maintenance
 Your code-base already contains significant OSS

Sixty-two percent of organizations surveyed indicated that their usage of open source
software in deployed software portfolios would exceed 25 percent in the next 18
months. And a full 17 percent of organizations expect their portfolios to be 50 to 74
percent made up of open source software. in their deployed software portfolios.
Laurie Wurster, Gartner Group, March 2011


The Open Source Revolution
OSS OSS OSS OSS OSS OSS
Commercial Commercial
Software Software
Package Package OSS OSS OSS OSS OSS

Negotiated OSS OSS OSS OSS OSS OSS
Procurement

Download
Mostly
Custom
Development Mostly
Integration

 This new approach creates new challenges
– Higher volume of code acquisition decisions
– Maintaining code and version consistency across an organization
– Managing support for many external elements
– Managing participation in public communities
– Insuring license compliance for many elements at distribution time

Copyright © 2011 Black Duck Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Open Source Management

Goal: Manage the complexity and risk inherent in the use of
open source software without reducing its productivity
advantages
 What it takes to achieve this goal
– Strategy and a clear understanding of objectives at the business level
– A Policy
– A Governance Process
– Ongoing audit and tuning

 Open Source Management works best when it is a natural
part of the software development process

"Companies must have a policy for procuring OSS, deciding which applications will be supported by
OSS, and identifying the intellectual property risk or supportability risk associated with using OSS.
Once a policy is in place, then there must be a governance process to enforce it."
Laurie Wurster, research director at Gartner Group


What is an OSS Policy?

 A set of rules and guidelines for using and managing
OSS in your organization

 An effective OSS policy must
– Cover all the essential aspects of
managing OSS
– Be succinct and easily understood
– Reflect the way software is
developed and delivered in your
company

Image CC Fotolia_14119067_M


Developing and Open Source Policy

 Step 1: Identify key stakeholders and get their
commitment
 Step 2: Prepare for discussions
 Step 3: Draft the policy
 Step 4: Review and update the policy

Identify Prepare Draft Review


Step 1: Get Commitment of the Stakeholders

 In most organizations the important stakeholders
represent the following functions:
– Software Architecture
– Software Development
– QA and/or Release Management
– Legal
– Product or Line of Business Management

 Organizations with sensitive data may also have a
Security stakeholder, responsible for the security
of software
 Getting stakeholder commitment to developing an
OSS policy is a critical success factor


Step 2: Prepare for Discussions

 Establish a shared base of understanding

– Collect and disseminate information about your
organization's use and plans for OSS, documents such
as:
 Existing policies or processes related to OSS
 Inventories of OSS currently used within the organization
 Existing license compliance requirements and or procedures

– Prepare a clearly articulated strategy for using OSS
 What benefits does the company most want?
 How will the company insure they are realized?


Step 3: Draft the Policy

 An OSS Policy is typically developed in a series of interactive
meetings with the stakeholders
 Many companies have found that using a facilitator with
experience in OSS policy and its operational implications can
speed the results
 An OSS policy should address the following elements:
1. Program administration and management
2. Discovery, acquisition and evaluation
3. Review and approval
4. Software procurement
5. Code and documentation management
6. Support and maintenance
7. License compliance
8. Community participation


Step 4: Review and Update the Policy

 Produce a draft policy document
 Circulate for review of the stakeholders
– Two or three iterations are typical
 Obtain approval of stakeholders and other
required executives
 Plan to review and update policy at regular
intervals, typically
– On completion of initial implementation
– Annually thereafter


Implementation

 Implement the policy through a set of processes
 Good processes facilitate both efficient software
development and effective OSS management
– Making it easy to "do the right thing."
 These process must also contain adequate checks to
make sure that the OSS policy is consistently followed
 Training is a key success factor for OSS Management
implementations
– For all participants in the policy and processes
– Even the best-intentioned individuals cannot follow rules
and processes they don't know and understand


Summary and Conclusions

 There are many compelling reasons to use open source
software, but this use entails new risks that must be
managed
 An OSS policy is your primary specification for managing your
OSS use
 There are four proven steps to developing an OSS Policy
– Step 1: Identify key stakeholders and get their commitment
– Step 2: Prepare for discussions
– Step 3: Draft the policy
– Step 4: Review, update and approve the policy
 The dimensions of an effective OSS Policy are well understood
and proven best practices exist
 An experienced facilitator can increase the speed and improve
the quality of this development process


Next Steps

1. Contact us:
Greg Olson
Sr. Director, OSS Management
Olliance Group – a Black Duck company
golson@olliancegroup.com
650.493.3800 x207

2. Free Whitepaper:
– Four Steps to Creating an Effective Open Source Policy


Four Steps to Creating an Effective Open Source Policy

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