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Open Source Software Licensing Workshop for Software Developers – 23-24 Nov 2022

23 November 2022, 09:30-15:00 CET and 24 November 2022, 09:30-12:00 CET

Open Source Software (OSS) is broadly used in almost all software development projects in the GÉANT project, and so a good working knowledge of how open-source licenses work as well as understanding compliance and risks are crucial to securing your code.

The GÉANT Learning And Development (GLAD) team announces the return of the Open Source Software Licensing workshop, which will be held online on 23-24 November 2022.

Primarily aimed at GÉANT GN4-3 project participants, the course follows on from last year’s popular OSS training, now available on the GÉANT eAcademy. As with the previous edition, the course will be led by compliance experts: Andrew Katz and Alex Murphy from ORCRO Limited.

Objectives

The course aims to enable software developers to contribute effectively to projects by choosing suitable Open Source Software (OSS) licenses and verifying if there are any license incompatibilities.

What you will learn

This course provides a practical dive into open source licensing and compliance practices. By applying what you explore in this class, you will be able to:

  • Understand and apply general open source licensing concepts, and identify whether specific components are subject to a permissive, copyleft or non-open source licence
  • Understand the extent to which components under different licences can be combined into a single application.
  • Understand how to select components for your project, based on the licence applicable and other criteria.
  • Understand the concepts behind a licence matrix and use the matrix to determine whether components under different licences are compatible.
  • Be able to identify licences not on the matrix, and add them accordingly
  • Understand how WhiteSource builds and analyses licence data, and use WhiteSource to review licence data for components, and identify incompatibilities and other issues
  • Understand the criteria involved in selecting an out-licence for a project and be able to apply those criteria to proposed project using both a manual selection process (using a component spreadsheet) and compliance tooling (WhiteSource).

Who should attend

This course has been designed for software developers and engineers who are contributing to open source projects and/or developing internal projects. Leaders responsible for software development activities in the GÉANT project are also invited to attend.

This training is primarily open to GÉANT GN4-3 Project members. Read how to fund your learning through GN4-3: https://wiki.geant.org/display/GIG/Fund+Your+Learning+through+GN4.3%3A+6+steps

Register below or leave your interest or inquiry with glad@geant.org or your WP/TL leader.

Register here

A Zoom link to take part in the training will be provided after the registration. Recordings of the training will be published on the GÉANT eAcademy.

Programme

<strong>Day 1 - 23 November 2022</strong>
  • 9:30 – 9:45 CET – Review of the course aims, and outline of topics covered
  • 9:45 – 10:30 CET – Review of open source licensing concepts, and issues. Identifying licences.
  • 10:30 – 10:40 CET – Break
  • 10:40 – 11:30 CET – Licence incompatibility: practical examples. Introduction to a compatibility matrix, and how to use it.
  • 11:30 – 11:40 CET – Break
  • 11:40 – 12:30 CET – Introduction to Mend (WhiteSource) – licence identification, compatibility review
  • 12:30 – 12:45 CET – Q&A
  • 12:45 – 13:45 CET – Break
  • 13:45 – 14:00 CET – Recap and quiz
  • 14:00 – 14:45 CET – Which out-licence to use? Considerations and issues
  • 14:45 – 14:50 CET – Quiz: which big tech projects are open source, and why?
  • 14:50 – 15:00 CET – Break
  • 15:00 – 15:30 CET – Quiz answers and discussion as practical examples on licence choice

Business case Preparation The facilitator introduces a real life GÉANT business case that the participants will use in the skills practice session on day 2.

<strong>Day 2 - 24 November 2022</strong>

Skills practice sessionIn small groups, participants apply their knowledge, skills and tools to a real-life business case and receive feedback from the facilitator and other participants.

  • 9:30 – 9:45 CET – Recap of day one, and introduction to today’s course
  • 9:45 – 10:30 CET – Practical exercise: reviewing sample code data to generate a licence list, determining a suitable out-licence
  • 10:30 – 10:40 CET – Break
  • 10:40 – 11:30 CET – Practical exercise: licence analysis using Mend (WhiteSource) and determining out-licence
  • 11:30 – 12:00 CET – Q&A, Recap and discussion
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