OSPO Testimonials .. they walk the talk!

SebL

Hi, I am Sébastien Lejeune, Open Source Advocate at Thales working at the Group Technical Directorate.

Context

Thales is a multinational group with french roots that designs, develops and manufactures electronical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors.

Open-source context:

  • Open Source Software & Hardware are strategic pillars for Thales, we want to foster collaborations between the actors of these communities through our GitHub organization: https://github.com/ThalesGroup
  • We did set an OSPO up back in 2020 and we have put in place a unified process & tooling to help collaborators to contribute to existing open source project and to share Thales assets in open source
  • Open Source is sponsored by the top management and clearly defined in the group strategy

My pain points

  1. Raise Awareness: I aimed to spread awareness about this global initiative throughout the organization.
  2. Middle Management Buy-In: My goal was to persuade middle management to actively encourage their teams to participate.
  3. Scaling Up: I sought to increase the number of contributors, both within Thales and externally.

How I did it

I joined the OSPO Alliance in 2022 and became an active committer after few months.

I instanciated the GGI board into our internal Gitlab at Thales and it helped me to have an overview about all the activities I had already achieved but also a lot of relevant resources to legitimate Thales Open Source strategy and to share them with different involved people.

Achievements since 2020

  • Established an OSPO: We created an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) to oversee our open-source efforts.
  • Streamlined Processes: We implemented tools and streamlined processes to facilitate easy asset publishing and contributions by all collaborators.
  • Comprehensive Documentation: A clear and accessible documentation was developed and shared across Thales.
  • Foundation Memberships: We expanded our affiliations with prominent open-source foundations, including Eclipse, Linux Foundation, CNCF, and OpenHardware Group.
  • Active Participation: Our involvement extended to various open-source working groups, such as Systematic Open Source Hub, Eclipse projects, CNCF projects, and the Good Governance Initiative.