GOVERNANCE
Open source program office advisory that catches the next change at the door.
Our open source program office advisory helps you stand up the function that governs open source across the organization. Policy, approval gates, and license allowlists are built to your risk tolerance and wired into how teams ship, so a future relicense is caught at intake rather than in an audit.
Independent, confidential, buyer side. See how buyers contained their exposure →
What open source program office advisory delivers
An open source program office is the single place where adoption, license risk, and governance meet. Without it, open source enters the estate through dozens of independent decisions, and no one owns the license posture of the whole. Open source program office advisory gives that function structure: a clear owner, a policy teams can follow, intake gates that flag risk before it lands, and a license allowlist that reflects your tolerance rather than a generic template.
The point is to make the next relicense a managed event. When HashiCorp moved Terraform, Vault, Consul, Nomad, and Packer to the Business Source License 1.1 as of August 2023, and when Redis and Elastic moved to the Server Side Public License, the teams that felt it least were the ones who could see, on day one, exactly where the affected component sat. A program office gives you that visibility by default. For the wider discipline, see the pillar on open source governance and SBOM.
How the function catches risk early
Risk caught at intake is cheap. Risk found in an audit is expensive. A working program office puts a light gate at the point of adoption, where an allowlist check flags a component before it enters production, and pairs it with a current dependency map so a license change is visible the moment it happens. The combination turns a relicense from a surprise into a line item you already track. The same map that satisfies a regulator is the map that finds a relicensed component before it becomes a finding.
Where you want this delivered as a standing engagement, the advisory hands off to open source governance and policy services, which build the policy, gates, and controls into the way your teams already work.
Independent by design
We are an independent, buyer side firm. We take no fee from any vendor and sell no software, so the policy we help you set reflects your risk tolerance rather than a supplier roadmap. This is commercial and licensing risk advisory, not legal advice. For policy language with legal effect and for interpretation of specific license terms, we point you to your own counsel and structure the program so counsel can sign off on it.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Questions buyers ask.
What is open source program office advisory?
Open source program office advisory helps you stand up or strengthen the function that governs open source across the organization. It sets policy, approval gates, and license allowlists wired into how teams ship, so a future relicense is caught at intake rather than in an audit.
Do we need an open source program office?
If open source sits in production and you have no single owner for license posture, the answer is usually yes. A program office gives you one place where adoption, license risk, and governance meet, which is what turns a relicense from a surprise into a managed event.
How does a program office reduce relicensing risk?
It catches risk at intake. License allowlists and approval gates flag a component before it enters the estate, and a current dependency map means a license change such as a move to the Business Source License or the Server Side Public License is visible the moment it happens rather than during an audit.
Is this legal advice?
No. Open source program office advisory is commercial and licensing risk advisory, not legal advice. For interpretation of license terms and drafting of policy language with legal effect, we recommend your own counsel.
How long does it take to stand one up?
An initial policy, intake gate, and allowlist can be in place within weeks. Maturing the function, with continuous dependency mapping and clear ownership, is a phased program we sequence to your risk tolerance and delivery cadence.
PREVENT
Set the rules before the next change lands.
A confidential open source license risk assessment. Independent, buyer side, paid only by you.
Not ready to talk? Read the free open source license risk guides first.