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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

South America

Oceania

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.

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.

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.

User groups

References