List of free and open-source software organizations
The following are notable organizations devoted to the advocacy, legal aid, financial aid, technical aid, governance, etc. of free and open-source software (FOSS) as a whole, or of one or more specific FOSS projects. For projects that have their own foundation or are part of an umbrella organization, the primary goal is often to provide a mechanism for funding development of the software.
For the most part, these organizations are structured as nonprofit/charity organizations.
This list does not include companies that aim to make money from free and open-source software.
Advocacy
- Ada Initiative – existed from 2011 to 2015; advocated the participation of women in FOSS development.
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) – founded in 1985; began as a development center for the GNU Project. It currently advocates for free software and against proprietary software and formats; and maintains and legally enforces the GNU General Public License. It also created the Free Software Definition.
- Open Source Initiative (OSI) – founded in 1998; promotes open source software from a pragmatic rather than moral perspective. Also created the Open Source Definition.
Location-specific
- April – founded in 1996; promotes free software in the French-speaking world.
- Associação Nacional para o Software Livre – founded in 2001; promotes the use of free software in Portugal.
- The Free Software Foundation has three regional sister organizations: Free Software Foundation Europe (founded 2001), Free Software Foundation of India (founded 2001) and Free Software Foundation Latin America (founded 2005).
- Free Software Initiative of Japan – founded in 2002; supports free software within Japan.
- Free Software Movement of India – founded in 2010; a coalition of organizations that advocate the use of free software within India.
- Fundación Vía Libre – founded in 2000; advocates digital rights and the use of free software in Latin America, especially within government.
- Hamakor – founded in 2003; promotes the use of free and open-source software in Israel.
- Indonesia, Go Open Source – advocates the use of open-source software within Indonesia.
- International Open Source Network – promoted the use of open-source software in Asia.
- Irish Free Software Organisation – promotes the use of free software in Ireland.
- Ma3bar – a United Nations-affiliated organization that promotes open source software within the Arab world.
- Mil-OSS – founded in 2009; promotes the use of open-source software in the United States Department of Defense.
- OpenForum Europe – founded in 2002; advocates for the use open source software in Europe.
- Open Source Alliance of Central Asia – founded in 2011; advocates for the use of open source software in Central Asia.
- Open Source for America – a consortium of organizations advocating for the use of FOSS in the United States.
- Open Source Industry Australia – founded in 2004; promotes open source in Australia, as well as the use of Australian open source software and services around the world.
- Open Source Software Institute – founded in 2000; promotes the use of open-source software in the United States within government, at all levels.
Legal aid
- IfrOSS – provides legal services for free software in Germany.
- Software Freedom Law Center – founded in 2005; provides free legal representation and other legal services to not-for-profit FOSS projects.
Umbrella organizations
The following organizations host, and provide other services, for a variety of different open-source projects.
- Outercurve Foundation – founded in 2009 by Microsoft as the CodePlex foundation, then renamed in 2010. It hosts around 25 open source projects, mostly Microsoft-related.
- Software Freedom Conservancy – founded in 2006; hosts around 30 projects.
- Software in the Public Interest (SPI) – founded in 1997, originally only for the Debian project; hosts around 35 projects, some of which are umbrella projects themselves.
Domain-specific organizations
The following organizations host open-source projects that relate to a specific technical area.
- freedesktop.org – founded in 2000; hosted by SPI since 2015.[1] Hosts around 25 projects, mostly related to the X Window System.
- Open Bioinformatics Foundation – founded in 2001; hosted by SPI since 2012. Hosts around 10 bioinformatics projects.
- Open Source Geospatial Foundation – founded in 2006; hosts roughly 25 projects related to geospatial technology.
- OSADL – founded in 2005; supports the development of various projects, mostly Linux-based, for the machine tool and automation industries.
- Xiph.Org Foundation – founded in 1994 as the "Xiphophorus Company"; became a non-profit under its current name in 2003. Directly develops, and supports outside development of, multimedia-related software and formats.
Project-specific organizations
A large number of single-project organizations (often called "foundations") exist; in most cases, their primary purpose is to provide a mechanism to bring funds from the software's users, including both individuals and companies, to its developers.
- .NET Foundation – founded in 2014; supports the development of open-source projects around the (proprietary) .NET Framework.
- Alliance for Open Media – founded in 2015; attempting to develop a royalty-free video format.
- Apache Software Foundation – founded in 1999; manages the development of the roughly 100 Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server.
- Blender Foundation – founded in 2002; supports the development of the computer graphics software Blender.
- CE Linux Forum – founded in 2003; supports the development of Linux for consumer electronics devices.
- Django Software Foundation – founded in 2008; supports the development of the web framework Django.
- The Document Foundation – founded in 2012; supports the development of the office suite LibreOffice.
- Drupal Association – founded in 2009; does advocacy of the Drupal content management system, including running the DrupalCon conference.
- Eclipse Foundation – founded in 2004; supports the development of the roughly 40 Eclipse projects, including the IDE Eclipse.
- F# Software Foundation – founded in 2013; supports the development of the F Sharp programming language.
- Firebird Foundation – founded in 2002; supports the development of the relational database Firebird.
- FreeBSD Foundation – founded in 2001; supports the development of the operating system FreeBSD.
- GNOME Foundation – founded in 2000; coordinates the development of the GNOME desktop environment.
- KDE e.V. – founded in 1997; supports the development of desktop applications by the KDE community.
- Kuali Foundation – founded in 2005; develops the Kuali family of enterprise resource planning software for higher education institutions.
- Linux Foundation – founded in 2007; supports the development of various Linux-related projects, most notably the Linux kernel. Also does advocacy, training and standards.
- Mozilla Foundation – founded in 2003; supports and manages development of the Mozilla project, in conjunction with the Mozilla Corporation, a for-profit company it owns.
- NetBSD Foundation – founded in 1995;[2] supports the development of the operating system NetBSD.
- Open Whisper Systems – founded in 2013; supports the development of the encrypted voice calling and instant messaging application Signal.
- OpenBSD Foundation – founded in 2007; supports the development of the operating system OpenBSD and its utilities.
- OpenStreetMap Foundation – founded in 2006; supports the development of the OpenStreetMap mapping software.
- Python Software Foundation – founded in 2001; supports the development of the Python programming language.
- The Rosetta Foundation – founded in 2009; develops the Service-Oriented Localisation Architecture Solution.
- SIPfoundry – founded in 2004; develops the sipXecs communications system, and does related advocacy.
- Sourcefabric – founded in 2010 as a spinoff from the Media Development Investment Fund; develops software for independent news media organizations.
- Symbian Foundation – existed from 2008 to 2011; supported the development of the now-defunct Symbian operating system.
- VideoLAN – founded in 2009;[3] supports the development of the VLC media player and related software.
- X.Org Foundation – founded in 2004; hosted by SPI since 2014. Does funding and advocacy related to the X Window System.
- XMPP Standards Foundation – founded in 2001 as the Jabber Software Foundation; renamed in 2007. Supports development around the XMPP communications protocol.
User groups
- Linux user group – the general term for organizations of Linux users; see Category:Linux user groups.
- PyLadies – founded in 2011; advocates for female participation in the Python community.
See also
- Ubuntu Foundation – created in 2005, but exists only as an emergency backup in case the company Canonical stops supporting Ubuntu.