Open Source Compliance Templates

When a company is in the process of creating a FOSS compliance program, they need to establish policy, processes, guidelines, best practices, and much more. The Open Compliance Program is offering some of these material as templates that you can customize to your own needs saving you the effort to start from scratch.

Making compliance processes easier

License compliance best practices require complete and accurate information about the FOSS components being used within the software supply chain. This requires a continual focus on ensuring the right information is collected and archived when a new FOSS component is to be introduced into a software product, from initial request to final shipment.

These templates are designed to collect most or all necessary information about a FOSS component and its usage, so that when a request is made to the company's internal Open Source review board, it can be easily and thoroughly evaluated. It also helps development organizations spend less time re-submitting missing data, and a standardized format can accelerate the approval process.

These templates are free to use, and should be adapted according to your company's needs. The Linux Foundation will periodically update and add to the available templates as needed.

Generic OSRB Contribution Form Author: The Linux Foundation This document – Generic Open Source Review Board Contribution Form – is part of the free resources made available by The Linux Foundation OCP. It offers a template for the Contribution Form used by developers to request approval to contribute to existing FOSS projects or when starting a new FOSS project. You can use this template as a starting point in designing your own forms. June 2012 Download Now

Generic FOSS Policy Author: The Linux Foundation Companies using FOSS often create a company-wide policy to ensure that all staff is informed of how to use FOSS (especially in products), to maximize the impact and benefit of using FOSS, and to ensure that any technical, legal or business risks resulting from that usage are properly mitigated. This document is a new free resource available from the Linux Foundation under the Open Compliance Program. It offers a generic FOSS Policy that companies can use as starting point in creating their own FOSS Policy. It provides a template policy that focuses on governing FOSS usage in externally distributed products that can be customized to the company’s specific needs. April 2012 Download Now

A Template for Approval Request Form For The Use of Free and Open Source Software Author: The Linux Foundation This document is part of the free resources made available by The Linux Foundation Open Compliance Program. It offers a template for the Approval Request Form used by developers to request approval to use Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in a commercial product. The company’s Open Source Review Board (OSRB) then reviews the submission and determines approval. In most cases, the submission, reviewal and approval of such requests is managed via an online submission system that is part of the company’s FOSS compliance management process. March 2012 Download Now