Open Source Organizations and Affiliations
Google is proud to take part in the following technical and
advocacy organizations:
Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on
providing a vendor-neutral open development platform and application
frameworks for building software. The Eclipse Foundation is a
not-for-profit corporation formed to advance the creation, evolution,
promotion, and support of the Eclipse Platform and to cultivate both
an open source community and an ecosystem of complementary products,
capabilities, and services.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF), established in 1985, is dedicated
to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
use of Free Software, particularly the GNU operating system, used
widely in its GNU/Linux variant. The FSF also helps to spread
awareness of the ethical and political issues surrounding freedom in
the use of software.
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering
the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007 by the merger of the Open Source
Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, it sponsors the work of
Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and
open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux
Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing
unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully
compete with closed platforms.
Established in July, 2003, with start-up funds from the Netscape
division of AOL, the Mozilla Foundation exists to provide
organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla
open-source software project. The Foundation has been incorporated as
a California not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Mozilla
project continues to exist beyond the participation of individual
volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and funds
and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while
participating in open-source software projects.
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development,
convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. The consortium produces
more Web services standards than any other organization, along with standards
for security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector
and for application-specific markets.
The ODF alliance works globally to educate policymakers, IT administrators,
and the public on the benefits and opportunities of the OpenDocument Format,
to help ensure that government information, records, and documents are fully
and natively accessible across platforms and applications, even as
technologies change.
Open Invention Network is an intellectual property company that was
formed to promote Linux by using patents to create a collaborative
environment. It is refining the intellectual property model so that
important patents are openly shared in a collaborative
environment. Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available
royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not
to assert its patents against the Linux System. This enables companies
to make significant corporate and capital expenditure investments in
Linux — helping to fuel economic growth.
The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is a non-profit membership
organization devoted to advancing open source technology related to
the Python programming language. It qualifies under the US Internal
Revenue Code as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) scientific and educational
public charity, and conducts its business according to the rules for
such organizations.