Software license compliance policy

Under the provisions of the City and County San Francisco administrative code and Mayor's Office directives, information technology resources are managed under the policy direction of the Committee on Information Technology (COIT).

Purpose and scope

The purpose of this document is to establish the policy for software licenses compliance and tracking. The software described in this policy includes any software installed on city equipment including, but not limited to, application software, client software, server software and operating system software. This policy is applicable to all City and County of San Francisco departments and agencies ("Departments").

Policy statement

Departments shall adopt policies and procedures to prevent the unlawful acquisition, reproduction, distribution, or transmission of commercial computer software.

Departments shall establish procedures to ensure that their use of software complies with the law. Policies and procedures should include at a minimum:

• Preparing inventories of software installed on computers.
• Developing and maintaining adequate record-keeping systems of software licenses.

Each Department should ensure that:

• Guidelines are provided to staff indicating what software that is authorized for use on department equipment.
• Only authorized software is used on the department computers.
• Staffs are educated regarding copyrights protecting software, as well as the policies and procedures adopted by the department or agency to honor those protections.
• The department has adequate policies, procedures, and practices regarding copyrights protecting software.

Departments will provide to COIT upon request an accounting of all software licenses used by their department within 60 days of the request. This information will assist COIT in the annual Planning, Budgeting, Resources, Architecture, and Policy process.

Exceptions

Exceptions to this policy can only be granted by COIT. This policy only applies to software installed on city equipment.

Approved August 21, 2008