Open Source

SanDisk believes in the value of open source as a user and contributor. We recognize open source's critical role in the growth and success of the technology industry today because it encourages a community to innovate, build, and share together. SanDisk also sees open source as a critical building block to its overall corporate and business strategy.

Open Source Projects

SanDisk contributes to many open source projects. Here are some examples of our work.

Linux Kernel - Zoned Storage

We make many contributions to the Linux kernel particularly in the subsystems related to storage to enable next generation storage technologies. One of our recent areas of focus has been Zoned Storage. Zoned Storage is an open, standards-based initiative to enable data centers to scale efficiently for the zettabyte storage capacity era. Related product: Ultrastar DC ZN540 NVMe ZNS SSD.

Sweet B

Sweet B is a library which implements public key elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) using the NIST P-256 and SECG secp256k1 curves. It is a core component of our ArmorLock Security Platform. To help build confidence in our cryptography library, we have open sourced it and also had it audited by the security research firm Trail of Bits. Related product:  G-Technology ArmorLock encrypted NVMe™ SSD

Open Titan

OpenTitan is the first open source project building a transparent, high-quality reference design and integration guidelines for silicon root of trust (RoT) chips. Leveraging our expertise in data infrastructure and open-source technologies, Western Digital is working with ecosystem partners to optimize the OpenTitan framework to meet the diverse security demands of data-centric storage use cases from the core to the edge, including machine-learning applications, smartphones and connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Check out our blog post describing our goals.

SanDisk Github

SanDisk also maintains an official GitHub repo for our own projects. Come by and check it out!

Open Source Organizations

Whether as a founder, member, or supporter, SanDisk works with the community to foster open source.

We are a silver member of the Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral, trusted hub for developers to code, manage, and scale open technology projects. Under the Linux Foundation umbrella are many projects that we collaborate with.

We are a founding member of CHIPS Alliance. The CHIPS Alliance develops high-quality, open source hardware designs relevant to silicon devices and FPGAs.

GPL Cooperation Commitment

As a user of and contributor to many open source projects licensed under version 2 of the GPL family of licensees, we recognize that open source compliance may be difficult and may result in mistakes. To grow the open source community and allow for good-faith actors to use our contributions under the GPL, we commit as follows:

Before filing or continuing to prosecute any legal proceeding or claim (other than a Defensive Action) arising from termination of a Covered License, SanDisk commits to extend to the person or entity (“you”) accused of violating the Covered License the following provisions regarding cure and reinstatement, taken from GPL version 3. As used here, the term ‘this License’ refers to the specific Covered License being enforced.

However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.

Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.

SanDisk intends this Commitment to be irrevocable, and binding and enforceable against Western Digital and assignees of or successors to SanDisk’s copyrights.

SanDisk may modify this Commitment by publishing a new edition on this page or a successor location.

'Covered License' means the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2), the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1), or the GNU Library General Public License, version 2 (LGPLv2), all as published by the Free Software Foundation.

'Defensive Action' means a legal proceeding or claim that SanDisk brings against you in response to a prior proceeding or claim initiated by you or your affiliate.

'SanDisk' means SanDisk Corporation or its affiliates.

Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct

We recognize that open source is built by healthy communities. We believe a healthy community will thrive when all participants are treated with and treat others with care and respect. To show our commitment to this idea, we have adopted the Contributor Covenant to govern all our open source projects and the conduct of all Western Digital contributors in our projects and in the larger open source community.

Open Source in our Products

We believe in open source and use it in many of our products. When we use open source, we acknowledge that use with a Third-Party Notices section and also share copyleft source code. The Open Source Compliance Page is a centralized location where we post these compliance artifacts. If you believe we have missed something, please click here to contact us.

Many of our products are built by OpenChain conformant processes. OpenChain is an open ISO standard (ISO/IEC 5230) for open source compliance that lays out best practices in using open source to build trusted supply chains. As a Platinum Member and board member during the ISO certification process, Western Digital believes in the benefit of OpenChain conformance.

Open source: our view at SanDisk is that the most secure solutions are based on open and inspectable implementations combined with transparent policies and security practices.

Open source silicon requires thinking about chip development in new ways.