Open Source Business Alliance

The alliance was founded in July 2011 in Stuttgart. The two founding associations, Linux Solutions Group e.V. (Lisog) and the LIVE Linux-Verband e.V., officially merged their groups at their annual general meetings on the 20th and 21 July 2011.[2][3]

The merger aimed to create a unified lobby group for the German open-source movement.[4]

In 2014, a further attempted consolidation failed. The OSB Alliance and the Open Source Business Foundation (OSBF) first announced their intention to merge the two associations to form a single large advocacy group on 18 November 2013. After almost a year of negotiations that only achieved an agreement, the merger collapsed on 15 October 2014.[5]

The current board of Open Source Business Alliance e.V. consists of 11 members:[8]

• Peter Ganten, Univention GmbH (Chairman)
• Holger Dyroff, ownCloud GmbH (Vice Chairman)
• Uwe Meyer-Gundelach, IBM Deutschland GmbH (Financial Director)
• Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar, Technische Universität München
• Henriette Baumann, integratio GmbH
• Karl-Eugen Binder
• Niels Mache, struktur AG
• Jens Ziemann, Red Hat
• Elmar Geese
• Rico Barth, Cape IT GmbH
• R. Haidl, SUSE Linux GmbH

Honorary Chairman

• Dr. Karl-Heinz Strassemeyer, formerly IBM Deutschland Entwicklung

The OSB Alliance supports working groups that cover a wide range of issues. As of January 2015 the following working groups were in operation:[9]

WG Cloud Computing

focuses on all aspects of cloud technology. One of its central initiatives is the “Deutsche Wolke” (“German Cloud”) project.[10] Participants in the project are mostly small and medium-sized businesses based in Germany. The aim is to create a cloud solution adapted to German businesses that offers security, transparency and reliability. The project won third prize in the platform services category at the “Hosting & Service Provider Summit 2014″, held in Frankfurt am Main on 8–9 May.[11]

WG Education

works on the modern use of digital and interactive teaching and learning material in schools and digital education platforms based on open technologies and standards. In November 2013, the group presented a 30-page document entitled “Digital media, educational platforms and IT infrastructure in schools based on open systems and standards”.[12][13] The goal is to create an open “education cloud” that is centrally provided but configured locally.

WG Events

decides which events the association attends and arranges its participation. Since 2012, the Working Group Events has organised the OSB Alliance’s Open Source Day,[14] held every autumn. Another of its main focuses is coordinating the appearance of the OSB Alliance at CeBIT,[15] as well as at other events with relevant topics, such as the OPEN-IT SUMMIT [16][17][18] or OPEN!2015.

WG Marketing

is a communications platform for marketing executives working at the OSB Alliance’s member businesses, which are mostly young and technology-focused. The group organises the “Open Source Marketing Exchange” (OSMEx) series of events for training marketing specialists at open-source companies. Furthermore, the group also awards the OSBAR,[19][20] the OSB Alliance’s prize for innovation, which aims to support particularly young businesses and business founders.

WG Office Interoperability

aims to improve the compatibility of the open-source solutions LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice with Microsoft’s proprietary Office suite, to promote the use of open-source office solutions critical for business. The group’s first project was the continued development of the OOXML filter in LibreOffice. The specification “Layout-getreue Darstellung von OOXML-Dokumenten in Open Source Office Applikationen” [21] (“Layout-faithful depiction of OOXML documents in open-source office applications”) was developed in 2011 by SUSE and Laredo.[22][23][24][25] The specification and subsequent patches were included in Apache Software License 2.0 and has been included in LibreOffice since version 4.0.

WG Public Affairs

formulates the positions of the OSB Alliance related to politics and public administration.[26][27][28] The group maintains direct and regular contact with politicians, acts as a point of contact for all questions from the public sector and cooperates in European fora. In November 2013, the working group published a brochure on PRISM and its consequences, with tips for countermeasures.[29][30] Most recently on 21 October 2014, the group held an open IT conference with councillors of the Green Party.[31][32]

• Official website
• Open Cloud Principles