Open Source Program Office

An Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is a physical or virtual department formed by Subject-matter experts involved in Free- and Open Software and Open standards management and operations in the organization.

Details
OSPOs are supported by numerous companies such as Yahoo!, Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg L.P., Comcast or Porsche, universities like Trinity College Dublin or the Johns Hopkins University.

The tasks of an OSPO include:


 * Advocacy for free software within the organization.
 * Internal and external community management and support of the respective maintainer of the software projects.
 * Maintenance of public version controls.
 * Release for use of free software.
 * Documentation of dependencies in used or included free software to prevent vulnerability or software license violations from third-party software.
 * Creation and monitoring of license compliance policies of free-software licenses in deployed applications or published products.
 * Corporate communication the open source strategy inside and outside the organization and contact with other OSPOs.
 * Development of Business models for open-source software.

Web Links

 * ospo-alliance.org Association of OSPOs, including the Eclipse Foundation
 * todogroup.org OSPO community of practice formed by member organizations and individual contributors
 * CURIOSS OSPO community for those working in University and Research Institution OSPOs
 * opensource.com - A guide to setting up your Open Source Program Office (OSPO) for success
 * joinup.ec.europa.eu - The Rise of the Open Source Program Offices (OSPO)