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Modernize Your Open Source Audits: 5 Reasons Spreadsheets Fail for Managing OSS Licenses

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As the use of open-source grows and deployment timelines shrink, management of open source is a growing concern that many organizations are struggling with handling effectively.

Most organizations start off managing all of their open-source dependencies in a spreadsheet. This is a process that generally involves someone from legal, engineering, product, or security tracking down the correct engineers to fill out a form that lists every open-source component used to help build a product. Then, legal and security review the dependencies against license policy and security vulnerability databases to ensure the software is compliant and secure. Finally, these reports are finalized and shared with auditors for IPO, M&A — or reports are shared with customers and partners that require compliance.

5 Reasons Why Using Spreadsheets for Open Source Management is a Recipe for Disaster discusses:

  • The process for managing open source software licenses with spreadsheets
  • Trends in open source vs. proprietary software usage
  • The 5 most common open source management "fails"
  • Enterprise and industry trends in open source adoption
  • Steps to take to move off of managing open source in spreadsheets
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ABOUT FOSSA

FOSSA is a leading application security and compliance platform that specializes in helping engineering teams deliver trusted software.

FOSSA enables companies to prioritize real vulnerabilities in their open source software with comprehensive SCA (software composition analysis) capabilities, while also making it possible for organizations to automate compliance reporting and SBOM (software bill of materials) lifecycle management to meet customer and regulatory requirements.

Founded in 2015, FOSSA is trusted by thousands of global organizations, has been downloaded nearly two million times, and has conducted nearly 100 million scans of open-source software.