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.
• Digital Freedom Foundation (DFF) – founded in 2004; organizes Software and other Freedom Days

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.

• Eclipse Foundation – founded in 2004; supports the development of over 350 Eclipse projects, including the Eclipse IDE.
• Linux Foundation – founded in 2007; supports the development of the Linux kernel, as well as over 60 other projects, only some of which are connected to Linux. Also does advocacy, training and standards.
• 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 40 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 .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.
• F# Software Foundation – founded in 2013; supports the development of the F# 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.
• 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 Invention Network – founded in 2005; acquires patent non-assertion promises from its members towards other organization members, focused on Linux
• Open Whisper Systems – founded in 2013; supports the development of the encrypted communications 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.
• Parrot Foundation – founded in 2008; supports the development of the Parrot virtual machine.
• Perl Foundation – founded in 2000; supports the development of the Perl programming language, including running Yet Another Perl Conference.
• Plone Foundation – founded in 2004; supports the development of the Plone web content management system.
• 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.
• Ruby Central – founded in 2002; supports and advocates for the use of the Ruby programming language.
• Sahana Software Foundation - founded in 2009; develops the Sahana suite of disaster and emergency management software.
• 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.
• Zope Foundation - founded in 2006; it promotes the development of the Zope platform by supporting the community that develops and maintains the relevant software components.

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.

References