This afternoon, I have made a demo of fossology in FOSS working group of SYSTEMATIC PARIS-REGION cluster
SYSTEM@TIC PARIS-REGION seeks to boost the economy and employment through innovation, training and partnerships. The researchers, industries, training organisations and local governments involved with the Cluster have three priorities:
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consolidate the major integrators' leadership in order to secure the sustainability of their R&D activities in the Paris Region
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foster the emergence of start-ups and the growth of technological SMEs with global ambitions
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strengthen the Paris Region's attractiveness by developing its image on an international scale in order to attract new global companies' R&D departments
This working group focus on open source software and how it may help members to achieve cluster's three objectives. It federates Big Company, SME, and research lab like INRIA (which I belong to).
During the presentation, and the demo that follows, interesting issues have been discussed :
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Benchmarking between Fossology and proprietary/alternative solutions like BlackDuck and Palamida. If anyone is aware of such a study, I will be very interested.
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Integration of Fossology tool in a more general software development process according a given governance (who and when shall we use Fossology). Answers are not the same for a research institute like INRIA, a consortium like ow2, FOSS SME or big integrators.
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Improvement of the web interface and deployment procedure
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Something like a "Legal Situation module". Much more complicated than the compatibility problem (reduced or not to a "compatibility matrix") since we will have to determine the nature of the "link" between the software and each component. That's a tricky issue since it will depend on the language, software architecture, ... . Indeed, we partially addressed this point with QualiPSo projet, but work is still in progress.
Finally, considering the strong expression of interest, we are planning to set up a R&D program funded by our regional institution, addressing one or more of these issues.