Open source organizations

Open source organizations

There are quite a number of not-for-profit and charitable organizations supporting the open source software movement. These are a few we think you should know about.

Apache Software Foundation

The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for a broad range of open source software projects. The Foundation provides an established framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that simultaneously limits contributors potential legal exposure.

The Document Foundation

The Document Foundation is proud to be the home of LibreOffice, the next evolution of the world’s leading free office suite. It is an independent self-governing meritocratic entity, created by former leading members of the OpenOffice.org Community, in the form of a charitable Foundation under German law (gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts).

The Eclipse Foundation

The Eclipse Foundation hosts a large community of over 300 open source projects and 8 industry working groups such as IoT, Automotive or Aerospace. The Foundation provides a set of services and best practices to enable vendor-neutral collaboration on open source technology.

Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a “nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users.” Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools, and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.

Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading technology companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation is the nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux.

Linux Professional Institute (LPI)

Founded in 1999, LPI is a Canadian non-profit that advocates and assists in the professional use of Linux, open source, and free software.

OpenCourseWare Consortium

The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a worldwide community of hundreds of universities and associated organizations committed to advancing OpenCourseWare and its impact on global education. OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality university‐level educational materials.

OpenHatch

OpenHatch is a non-profit dedicated to matching prospective free software contributors with communities, tools, and education.

OpenSourceMatters

Open Source Matters (OSM) is a not-for-profit organization, incorporated in the United States, created to serve the financial and legal interests of the Joomla project. OSM will also engage in regular self-assessment to ensure it is accountable to Joomla!, acting in Joomla!’s interest and ensuring that it is the right shape and size to support Joomla!.

Open Source Geospatial Foundation

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation is an umbrella foundation for the support of collaborative development of open source geospatial software. All major GIS related software projects are involved; furthermore it includes educational outreach, public geodata and growing communities.

Open Source For America (OSFA)

Open Source for America (OSFA) seeks to raise awareness in the U.S. Federal Government about the benefits of open source software. OSFA hopes to encourage the government’s utilization of open source software participation in open source software projects, and incorporation of open source community dynamics to enable transparency.

Open Source Initiative

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation with global scope formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community.

OpenStack Foundation

The OpenStack Foundation promotes the global development, distribution, and adoption of the OpenStack cloud operating system. As the global independent home for OpenStack, the Foundation serves more than 30,000 Individual Members from over 170 countries around the world.

Oregon State University (OSU) Open Source Lab

The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is the home of growing, high-impact open source communities. Its world-class hosting services enable the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the Drupal content management system and over 50 other leading open source software projects to collaborate with contributors and distribute software to millions of users globally.