CS Knowledge Base

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 to fund development of the software.

Most of these groups are structured as nonprofit–charity organizations.

This list includes no businesses that aim to make money from free and open-source software.

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

• Apache Software Foundation (ASF) – founded 1999 with headquarters in Wakefield, MA, USA; manages development of over 350 Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server.^[1]
• Center for the Cultivation of Technology - founded 2016 in Germany, headquarters in Berlin; hosts a variety of projects.
• Eclipse Foundation – founded 2004 with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium; supports development of over 350 Eclipse projects, including the Eclipse IDE.
• Free Software Foundation (FSF) – founded 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 2000 with headquarters in Orinda, CA, USA; coordinates the efforts of the GNOME Project, primarily the GNOME desktop environment & ecosystem.
• KDE e.V. – founded 1997 with headquarters in Berlin, Germany; coordinates efforts of KDE Projects including KDE
• Linux Foundation (LF) – founded 2000 with headquarters in San Francisco, CA, USA; supports development of the Linux kernel, and over 60 other projects, only some of which are connected to Linux, and advocacy, training, and standards.
  • Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) – founded 2015, to promote cloud-native computing. It was announced with Kubernetes 1.0, an open source container orchestration system, which was contributed to the foundation by Google as a seed technology.
• 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 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 2007 with headquarters in Paris, France; focused on infrastructure for enterprise middleware
• Open Source Initiative (OSI) – founded 1998 with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, USA; steward of the Open Source Definition, a foundational policy document of the open-source software movement
• Sahana Software Foundation – founded 2009 with headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, USA; for humanitarian-related software
• Software Freedom Conservancy – founded 2006 with headquarters in New York, NY, USA; hosts around 40 projects.
• Software in the Public Interest (SPI) – founded 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 2009 with headquarters in Paris, France; multimedia-related projects

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

• freedesktop.org – founded 2000; hosted by SPI since 2015.^[2] Hosts around 25 projects, mostly related to the X Window System.
• Open Bioinformatics Foundation – founded 2001; hosted by SPI since 2012. Hosts around 10 bioinformatics projects.
• Open Source Geospatial Foundation – founded 2006; hosts roughly 25 projects related to geospatial technology.
• Open Source Security Foundation – founded 2020
• OSADL – founded 2005; supports development of various projects, mostly Linux-based, for the machine tool and automation industries.
• Xiph.Org Foundation – founded 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.

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 2014; supports development of open-source projects around the .NET framework.
• Alliance for Open Media – founded 2015; attempting to develop a royalty-free video format.
• AlmaLinux OS Foundation – founded 2021; owns and manages everything to do with the open source operating system AlmaLinux.
• Blender Foundation – founded 2002; supports development of the computer graphics software Blender.
• Center for Open Science – The Open Science Framework is a software project that facilitates open collaboration in science
• CE Linux Forum – founded 2003; supports development of Linux for consumer electronics devices.
• Common Lisp Foundation^[3]
• Django Software Foundation – founded 2008; supports development of the web framework Django.
• The Document Foundation – founded 2012; supports development of the office suite LibreOffice.
• Drupal Association – founded 2009; advocates for the Drupal content management system, including running the DrupalCon conference.
• F# Software Foundation – founded 2013; supports development of the F# programming language.
• Firebird Foundation – founded 2002; supports development of the relational database Firebird.
• FreeBSD Foundation – founded 2001; supports development of the operating system FreeBSD.
• GNOME Foundation – founded 2000; coordinates development of the GNOME desktop environment.
• GrapheneOS Foundation – founded 2023; supports development of the privacy- and security-focused mobile operating system GrapheneOS.
• KDE e.V. – founded 1997; supports development of desktop applications by the KDE community.
• Krita Foundation – founded 2013; supports development of the Krita digital painting application.
• Kuali Foundation – founded 2005; develops the Kuali family of enterprise resource planning software for higher education institutions.
• MariaDB Foundation – founded 2012; supports development of MariaDB Server and related advocacy.
• Mozilla Foundation – founded 2003; supports and manages development of the Mozilla project, in conjunction with the Mozilla Corporation, a for-profit company it owns.
• NetBSD Foundation – founded 1995;^[4] supports development of the operating system NetBSD.
• Open Invention Network – founded 2005; acquires patent non-assertion promises from its members towards other organization members, focused on Linux
• OpenBSD Foundation – founded 2007; supports development of the operating system OpenBSD and its utilities.
• OpenStreetMap Foundation – founded 2006; supports development of the OpenStreetMap mapping software.
• Perl Foundation – founded 2000; supports development of the Perl programming language, including running Yet Another Perl Conference.
• Plone Foundation – founded 2004; supports development of the Plone web content management system.
• Python Software Foundation – founded 2001; supports development of the Python programming language.
• The Rosetta Foundation – founded 2009; develops the Service-Oriented Localisation Architecture Solution.
• Rails Foundation – founded 2022; supports and advocates for the community using the web framework Ruby on Rails.
• Ruby Central – founded 2002; supports and advocates for 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 2009; develops the Sahana suite of disaster and emergency management software.
• Signal Foundation – founded 2018; supports development of the encrypted communication application Signal.
• SIPfoundry – founded 2004; develops the sipXecs communication system, and related advocacy.
• Sourcefabric – founded 2010 as a spinoff from the Media Development Investment Fund; develops software for independent news media organizations.
• Symbian Foundation – existed 2008–2011; supported development of the discontinued Symbian operating system.
• VideoLAN – founded 2009;^[5] supports 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 2004; hosted by SPI since 2014. Does funding and advocacy related to the X Window System.
• XMPP Standards Foundation – founded 2001 as the Jabber Software Foundation; renamed in 2007. Supports development around the XMPP communication protocol.
• Zope Foundation – founded 2006; it promotes development of the Zope platform by supporting the community that develops and maintains the relevant software components.

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

• IfrOSS – founded 2015; provides legal services for free software in Germany.
• Software Freedom Law Center – founded 2005; provides free legal representation and other legal services to not-for-profit FOSS projects.

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

• Khronos Group – standards for 3D graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality, parallel computation, and machine learning.
• List of Apache Software Foundation projects
• List of Eclipse projects
• List of free and open-source software packages