Welcome to Open Source Readiness (OSR)

What is it?

The Open Source Readiness Special Interest Group (OSR SIG) is dedicated to helping financial services firms advance their open source programs.

We produce and collect:

The OSR knowledge base - a collaborative project aimed at developing a comprehensive body of knowledge on open source best practices for the financial services industry.

Various Resources to help firms with their open source mission.

Comprehensive Training and Certification materials that firms can use to train and certify developers for open source contribution in a financial services setting.

Why is it Important?

Open Source use and contribution are increasingly important both for strategic competitive advantage and to manage business risks.

Here are some resources to help make this case:

A Presentation on Open Source Readiness explaining why we need this project.

An executive whitepaper on the business value of open source.

Distilled Best Practices

The materials on this site are built by the consensus of financial services firms. This means they reflect best practices and thinking for our industry.

How Does it Work?

Navigating Open Source Readiness

Articles within the site are broken down into different areas, such as Risks, Activities, Artifacts and Regulations, contributed by members of the OSR SIG.

Open Source Maturity

The Activities are arranged into a maturity model, starting at Usage and moving through Compliance Contribution, Hosting until the highest level, Strategic Open Source.

The OSR SIG is building out articles describing the expected activities at each level as well as putting together checklists for firms to self-assess on their level of maturity.

Other Resources

This site also contains other resources to help firms on their open source journey, such as:

• A reference open source policy for FSI firms.
• An Open Source License Compliance Handbook with information about complying with common open source licenses.

How Do I Get Involved?

Meetings

First Wednesday Every Month
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A show-and-tell covering important topics in open source. Visit to suggest topics but please come along and raise any topics you feel are relevant. Previous meetings' content is often added in the Presentations section, so take a look there at what we've covered in the past.

Meetings are open to anyone who would like to participate. Previous Meeting Minutes and Agendas are available on GitHub.

Mailing List

Subscribe to our mailing list by sending an email to join. You will get updates on upcoming meetings and other activity.

Training

In November 2023 the OSR SIG team are proud to announce general availability of two new Linux Foundation training products:

Open Source Contribution in Finance (LFD137) - a comprehensive training enabling developers in financial services to safely participate in open source communities, drawing from the best practices of the world's top financial institutions.

FINOS Financial Services Open Source Certification (FSOSD) - designed to ensure open source contributors in financial institutions, fintech and technology vendors and consultants operating in the financial industry contribute in line with the financial services industry's regulatory framework and compliance best practices.

To The Training Page

Quick Start Guides

Start with the cheat sheet for your organisation's current maturity level:

Level 1: Ad-Hoc Usage — open source is being used, but without formal governance.

Level 2: Compliant Usage — establishing governance, compliance, and an OSPO.

Level 3: Contribution — enabling staff to contribute to open source projects.

Level 4: Hosting Projects — maintaining and contributing projects to foundations.

Level 5: Strategic Leverage — using open source as a strategic tool.

Information Architecture

This site is designed as a collection of interconnecting documents and categories which can be browsed in any order. The following diagram summarizes the information architecture:

Please see the following introductory articles on these areas:

Where To Start

Open Source Activities

This section describes common activities performed by staff involved in the consumption or contribution of open source software. Where possible, we identify the role performing this activity.

Open Source Artifacts

This section describes common artifacts either consumed or produced when managing open source software within the enterprise. Artifacts may be machine- or process- generated (such as an SBOM) or the result of human effort (such as an Open Source Strategy).

Certifications

This section of the body of knowledge details certifications we are producing for either open source professionals or organisations.

Open Source Measurements

This section of the Body of Knowledge describes common measurements you might make within an organisation to judge the health either of individual projects or the organisation's maturity of open source as a whole.

The Open Source Maturity Model

The Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM) is a framework that helps organizations assess and improve their use of open source software. The primary purpose of the OSMM is to provide a structured way for organizations to evaluate their open source practices and identify areas for improvement. The model consists of a set of maturity levels, each with a defined set of characteristics and activities that an organization must achieve to move to the next level.

Regulation

This section of the body of knowledge looks at the different laws that might apply to the consumption or contribution of open source within regulated industries.

OSR Resources

The OSR SIG has produced several resources to help financial services firms along their open source journey.

Open Source Risks

This section breaks down the different types of risks that enterprises face by consuming or contributing to open source software.

Open Source Roles

Different roles within a firm have varying responsibilities towards the effective management of open source software.

Training

This section of the body of knowledge looks at the available training on open source.

Presentations

Here are some presentations collected together produced by the Open Source Readiness and InnerSource SIGs.