Four Corners Intelligence

Open Source Software compliance

Deloitte Legal has a unique technology solution that is powered by our award-winning Four Corners Intelligence platform. This enables in-house lawyers, managers and developers to understand and navigate the unique risks and complexities of Open Source Software (“OSS”) licence compliance.

Four Corners Intelligence

The challenge

OSS is everywhere.

If you use software in the delivery of your services and products to your customers, you will be using OSS. There are huge benefits to using OSS, but it comes with a unique set of risks. Managing OSS risks within an organisation is difficult, as there are multiple stakeholders with varying levels of understanding of the organisation’s policies and the legal risks involved. Deloitte Legal has experience of supporting clients in this distinct area.

Consequences of non-compliance or misuse of OSS:

  • Being legally required to publicly disclose source code to your proprietary software
  • Legal disputes and damages claims with OSS authors, customers and suppliers
  • Adverse impact to IP value and protection
  • Reputational damage

Technology solution: Four Corners Intelligence

Comprehensive guidance

A ready to go OSS advice platform containing comprehensive and understandable guidance on all common OSS licences.

Toolkit

Our platform includes a toolkit containing licence summaries, detailed legal analysis, key issues and information on how to safely use each OSS licence.

Legal risk report

You can upload the results of a code scan audit for an automated legal risk report.

Searchable licence reviews

It contains OSS licence reviews and advice that are prepared by our expert team within Deloitte Legal, in a structured and searchable format.

Fully customisable

It comes ready to use, but can be fully customised to fit your organisation’s needs.

Access options

Access to the content can be tailored to particular user types.

Legal support

In addition to our technology solution, we also provide a range of legal services and training support to assist our clients with their OSS compliance activities. These include:

Contracting support

Helping you manage OSS risk and maintain licence compliance by including terms in supplier and customer contracts which are appropriate to the use case.

Remediation support

Supporting you with the remediation of OSS issues once discovered, or as part of a more general proactive compliance drive. We can also support on more formal OSS disputes if those arise.

Governance support

Supporting you in the creation of appropriate policies and governance structures to allow OSS to be used in a controlled manner. We can also help implement best practice approaches.

Training

Providing training that helps ensure the unique risks of OSS are understood across the organisation, as well as providing the solutions and strategies for mitigating those risks.

Key contacts

Paul Hinton

Head of Commercial & Technology

Stephen Reeves

Director