HP just announced the availability of FOSSology, an open source tool that can be used to track and monitor the use of Open Source software within an organization. The main functionality made available at the moment is license detection, more features will be added in the next future.
At the Linux Meets Business conference held yesterday in Germany Christine Martino - Vice President Open Source and Linux Organization at HP - introduced also FOSSBazaar, a community platform to discuss best practices related to the governance of FOSS.
I had the chance to learn more about HP open source plans just last week, when Martin Mychlmayr invited me to talk with him, Phil Robb - Engineering Section Manager in the Open Source and Linux Organization at HP - and Bernard Marclay, FOSS Marketing Manager at HP.
HP wants to demonstrate its experience with FOSS Governance obtained in over 7 years for internal purposes, and it will be offering services related to FOSS Governance at large (e.g. defining open source policies, supporting the adoption process with its consulting division, etc).
As a matter of fact they are partnering with many actors. Doug Levin - Black Duck software CEO - made some public statements welcoming FOSSology’s introduction. Steven Grandchamp - OpenLogic CEO - asked to comment the announcement told me:
As a Strategic Sponsor of FOSSBazaar, OpenLogic is working with others to provide information and tools that help enterprises understand the issues around open source governance. Sharing our open source expertise, along with tools like OpenLogic’s OSS Discovery (which produces an inventory of open source being used) and HP’s FOSSology (which uncovers licenses in open source), will help enterprises leverage the significant financial benefits of open source software.
Also Stormy Peters is blogging on the matter, and others will come. While having dinner with HP people honestly I couldn’t come out with a firm’s name that they didn’t contact yet. We also spoke about the business side of the initiative, I will soon write on the matter.
The man behind the FOSSBazar community.
Martin, a known Debian developer and fellow researcher, is the man behind the FOSSBazar community. He is the FOSSBazaar Community Manager, and he will be working with partners to define content, help members to conduct valuable and interesting discussions and debates, and he will be joining conferences all over the world to promote the FOSSBazaar community.
I wish him all the best of luck!
About Martin Michlmayr.
Martin Michlmayr has been involved in various free and open source software projects for well over 10 years. He acted as the leader of the Debian project for two years. In this role, he performed important organizational and coordination tasks within Debian. Martin works for HP as an Open Source Community Expert and acts as the community manager of FOSSBazaar. Martin holds Master degrees in Philosophy, Psychology and Software Engineering, and earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
GNOME is raising funds for a system administrator, and just yesterday a ruler has been added to the top of various GNOME websites to show people progress. Stormy Peters reported that on the first day almost $1,000 in donations came from individual donors, and $5,000 from a company.
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