The first part of the book is about open-source software, the engineering artifact, and how to use open-source software in projects and products. This covers how to think about and select open-source software, how to distribute projects and products to customers in a license-compliant way, and how to track security risks from the software supply chain.
Open-source software is to be seen in contrast to closed-source software. While open-source software is free to use and available in source code form, closed-source software is only available in executable form and typically requires the payment of license fees. The following sections provide details and more precision.
In companies, open source program offices support the organization in using open-source software, contributing to open source projects, and creating and leading open source projects. This part of the book covers using open-source software, the next part covers contributing to open source projects, and a third part covers creating and leading projects.
The three steps of using, contributing to, and leading open-source software projects, also correspond to the path of increasing engagement that both people and companies take.