Managing Your Open Source Supply Chain-Why and How?
Nikolay Harutyunyan
Abstract
Reports on the European Commission report on the use of free/libre and open source software (FLOSS). According this study, FLOSS saves the European economy roughly €114 billion per year directly and up to €399 billion per year overall.1 FLOSS components are an essential part of software infrastructure ranging from operating systems and web servers to media players and much more. Companies use such components to address their product requirements for nondifferentiating functionalities while focusing their internal development efforts on core differentiating features. By extension, software supply chains consist of multiple supplier tiers that all feed into each other and thus accumulate open source software that eventually gets into companies that sell complex products, such as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).