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.

Location-specific

Africa

  • Ma3bar – a United Nations-affiliated organization that promotes open source software within the Arab world.

Asia

Australia

  • 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.

Europe

North America

  • 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.
  • Open Source for America (OSFA) – a consortium of organizations advocating for the use of FOSS in the United States.
    • Mil-OSS – founded in 2009; promotes the use of open-source software in the United States Department of Defense.
  • Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) – founded in 2000; promotes the use of open-source software in the United States within government, at all levels.
  • Fairfield Programming Association (FPA) – founded in 2020; focused on education and creating open-source software as learning resources.

South America

Oceania

  • New Zealand Open Source Society – founded in 2003; promotes the use of open-source software in New Zealand.
  • Free Software Initiative of Japan – founded in 2002; supports free software within Japan

Umbrella organizations

The following organizations host, and provide other services, for a variety of different open-source projects:

  • Apache Software Foundation (ASF) – founded in 1999 with headquarters in Wakefield, MA, USA; manages the development of over 350 Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server.[1]
  • Eclipse Foundation – founded in 2004 with headquarters in Ottawa, ON, Canada; supports the development of over 350 Eclipse projects, including the Eclipse IDE.
  • Free Software Foundation (FSF) – founded in 1985 with headquarters in Boston, MA, USA; supports the free software movement, which promotes the universal freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify computer software
  • GNOME Foundation – founded in 2000 with headquarters in Orinda, CA, USA; coordinates the efforts of the GNOME Project, including GNOME
  • KDE e.V. – founded in 1997 with headquarters in Berlin, Germany; coordinates the efforts of KDE Projects including KDE
  • Linux Foundation (LF) – founded in 2000 with headquarters in San Francisco, CA, USA; 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.
  • OASIS Open - founded in 1993; provides communities with foundation-level support, IP and license management, governance, and outreach with an optional path for work to be recognized by de jure standards organizations and referenced in public procurement.
  • OpenInfra Foundation – founded in 2012 with headquarters in Austin, TX; focused on the development and support of open source infrastructure projects, including OpenStack. Previously known as the OpenStack Foundation.
  • OW2 – founded in 2007 with headquarters in Paris, France; focused on infrastructure for enterprise middleware
  • Open Source Initiative (OSI) – founded in 1998 with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, USA; steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software
  • Sahana Software Foundation – founded in 2009 with headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, USA; for humanitarian-related software
  • Software Freedom Conservancy – founded in 2006 with headquarters in New York, NY, USA; hosts around 40 projects.
  • Software in the Public Interest (SPI) – founded in 1997 with headquarters in New York, NY, USA; originally only for the Debian project, it now hosts around 35 projects, some of which are umbrella projects themselves.
  • VideoLAN – founded in 2009 with headquarters in Paris, France; multimedia-related projects

Domain-specific organizations

The following organizations host open-source projects that relate to a specific technical area.

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.
  • AlmaLinux OS Foundation – founded in 2021; owns and manages everything to do with the open source operating system, AlmaLinux OS.
  • 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.
  • Krita Foundation – founded in 2013; supports the development of the Krita digital painting application.
  • 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;[3] 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
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Rails Foundation – founded in 2022; supports and advocates for the community who uses the web framework Ruby on Rails.
  • Ruby Central – founded in 2002; supports and advocates for the use of the Ruby programming language.
  • Rust Foundation - founded in 2021; supports the Rust programming language and ecosystem, with a unique focus on supporting the set of maintainers that govern and develop the project.
  • Sahana Software Foundation – founded in 2009; develops the Sahana suite of disaster and emergency management software.
  • Signal Foundation – founded in 2018; supports the development of the encrypted communications application Signal.
  • 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;[4] supports the development of the VLC media player and related software.
  • Wikimedia Foundation - founded in 2003; develops MediaWiki and hosts related websites, such as the English Wikipedia
  • 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.

Cause-specific

  • Ada Initiative – existed from 2011 to 2015; advocated the participation of women in FOSS development.
  • PyLadies – founded in 2011; advocates for female participation in the Python community.
  • 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.

User groups

  • GNU/Linux Users Groups
  • Linux user group – the general term for organizations of Linux users; see Category:Linux user groups.

References

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