Tips And Tools For Open Source Compliance
mend.io, Thursday, August 31,2023
You don't need us to tell you that open source software is becoming a very significant percentage of commercial software codebases. Open source components are free, stable, and enable you to focus your resources on the innovative and differentiated aspects of your work.
But as the use of open source components increases, compliance with open source licenses has become a complex project of growing importance. So how can you stay on top of compliance and what tools are out there to help?
If you're completely new to managing open source license compliance, you have four major things to create for your company: a formal policy for the use of open source licensed code in your organization, an inventory of open source components currently in use, a plan to replace any open source code that isn't meeting your policies, and an attribution document. It's no small feat but it's perfectly doable. Let's get into each item in a bit more detail and then go over some tools to help you continuously manage open source licenses.