Development of safety-related systems and of the software therein is required to adhere to specific process requirements. Appropriate re-use of existing software, either of legacy in-house projects or open-source solutions, is a reasonable desire among OEMs and suppliers alike. Unfortunately the hurdles are often so paramount that an entire re-engineering of the preexisting software element results in less overall effort. We are aggregating information regarding the largest challenges in this domain to combine them with novel approaches to enable the overall use of pre-existing software for safety-critical automotive systems. This ties in with the efforts made in scope of the ISO/AWI PAS 8926 "Qualification of pre-existing software products for safety-related applications" to cause a shift in the industry and dissipate barriers that are in the way of progress, especially with regard to cross-company collaboration on shared libraries. The intention is to provide at least the same amount of safety evidence as is achieved using conventional development approaches by leveraging the strengths of distributed development processes and modern tooling designed for use in collaborative environments utilizing version control.