The following are notable organizations devoted to the

advocacy Advocacy is an Action (philosophy), activity by an individual or advocacy group, group that aims to influence decision making, decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to infl ...

, legal aid, financial aid, technical aid, governance, etc. of ''

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

'' (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.

Location-specific

Africa

* Ma3bar – a United Nations-affiliated organization, promotes open source software within the

Arab world The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...

Asia

* Free Software Movement of India – founded 2010; a coalition of organizations that advocate use of free software within India. ** Regional movements *** Democratic Alliance of Knowledge Front, Kerala (DAKF) *** Free Software Movement of Delhi/NCR *** Free Software Movement of Karnataka (FSMK) *** Free Software Movement of Maharashtra (FSMM) *** Free Software Movement of Rajasthan *** Free Software Foundation Tamilnadu (FSFTN) *** Free Software Movement of West Bengal *** Swadhin, Odisha *** Swecha, Telangana & Andhra Pradesh ** Sectoral movements *** Appropriate Technology Promotion Society *** Knowledge Commons *** National Consultative Committee of Computer Teachers Association (NCCCTA) ***

Open Source Geospatial Foundation The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), is a non-profit non-governmental organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technology, technologies and data. The foundation was formed in ...

India (OSGEO India) * Free Software Foundation of India – founded 2001 * International Center for Free and Opensource Software ( ICFOSS) – founded 2011; an autonomous organization set up by the Government of Kerala, India for free and open source software. * International Open Source Network (IOSN) – existed 2004–2006; promoted use of open-source software in Asia. * Open Source Alliance of Central Asia – founded 2011; advocates for use of open source software in Central Asia. * Hamakor – founded 2003; promotes use of free and open-source software in Israel. * FOSS United – founded 2020.

Australia

* Open Source Industry Australia – founded 2004; promotes open source in Australia, and use of Australian open source software and services around the world.

Europe

Free Software Foundation Europe The Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE) is an organization that supports free software and all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in several European countries. It is a registered voluntary associat ...

– founded 2001 *

Irish Free Software Organisation The Irish Free Software Organisation (IFSO) is a member organisation based in the Republic of Ireland which works to promote the use of free software in Ireland, and oppose legal or political developments which would interfere with the use or develo ...

– promotes use of free software in Ireland. * OpenForum Europe – founded 2002; advocates for use of open source software in Europe. * Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) – founded 2008; promotes use of open-source software, open hardware, open data and content in education, in government and the private sector, at all levels, in Greece and cooperates closely with similar organizations in Europe and worldwide. * Open Source Observatory and Repository – a project launched by the European Commission, to support the distribution and re-use of software developed by or for public sector administrations across Europe *

April April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Its length is 30 days. April is commonly associated with the season of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the ...

– founded 1996; promotes free software in the French-speaking world. * Associação Nacional para o Software Livre – founded 2001; promotes use of free software in Portugal. * Digital Freedom Foundation (DFF) – founded 2004; organizes

Software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and other Freedom Days
"Ceata" Foundation
Romania - officially founded in 2013, but active since 2008 as an informal group
"ProLinux" Association
Romania - founded in 2009
"ROSEdu" Association
Romania
"Informatica la Castel" Free Software Summer School
Arad, Romania - founded in 2003 * Open Source Business Alliance, Germany.

North America

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

(FSF) – founded 1985; began as a development center for the

GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...

. It currently advocates for free software and against proprietary software and formats; and maintains and legally enforces the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

. It also created

the Free Software Definition ''The Free Software Definition'' is a policy document written by Richard Stallman and published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). It defines free software as software that grants users the freedom to use, study, share, and modify the softwar ...

. *

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a California public benefit corporation "actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software". Governance The ...

(OSI) – founded 1998; promotes open source software from a pragmatic rather than moral perspective. Also created

the Open Source Definition ''The Open Source Definition'' (OSD) is a policy document published by the Open Source Initiative. Derived from the Debian Free Software Guidelines written by Bruce Perens, the definition is the most common standard for open-source software. T ...

. *

Open Source for America Open Source for America (OSFA) is a consortium of various organizations established to advocate for and support the use of free and open-source software in the U.S. Federal government. It consists of various open source foundations, and companies, ...

(OSFA) – a consortium of organizations advocating for use of FOSS in the United States. ** Mil-OSS – founded 2009; promotes use of open-source software in the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

. * Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) – founded 2000; promotes use of open-source software in the United States within government, at all levels. * Fairfield Programming Association (FPA) – founded 2020; focused on education and creating open-source software as learning resources.

South America

Free Software Foundation Latin America Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA) is the Latin American sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation. It is the fourth sister organisation of FSF, after Free Software Foundation Europe and Free Software Foundation India. It ...

– founded 2005 * Fundación Vía Libre – founded 2000; advocates digital rights and use of free software in Latin America, especially within government.

Oceania

* New Zealand Open Source Society – founded 2003; promotes use of open-source software in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. * Free Software Initiative of Japan – founded 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 The Apache Software Foundation ( ; ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open-source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the ...

(ASF) – founded 1999 with headquarters in Wakefield, MA, USA; manages development of over 350 Apache software projects, including the

Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source software, free and open-source cross-platform web server, released under the terms of Apache License, Apache License 2.0. It is developed and maintained by a community of developers under the ...

.
Center for the Cultivation of Technology
- founded 2016 in Germany, headquarters in Berlin; hosts a variety of projects. *

Eclipse Foundation The Eclipse Foundation AISBL is an independent, Europe-based not-for-profit organization that acts as a steward of the Eclipse open source software development community, with legal jurisdiction in the European Union. It is an organization supp ...

– founded 2004 with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium; supports development of over 350 Eclipse projects, including the

Eclipse IDE Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. It had been the most popular IDE for Java development until 20 ...

. *

(FSF) – founded 1985 with headquarters in Boston, MA, USA; supports the

free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for user (computing), software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets thes ...

, 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 GNOME Project is a community behind the GNOME desktop environment and the software platform upon which it is based. It consists of all the software developers, artists, writers, translators, other contributors, and active users of GNOME. The GNOM ...

, including

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

* KDE e.V. – founded 1997 with headquarters in Berlin, Germany; coordinates efforts of

KDE Projects KDE Projects are projects maintained by the KDE, KDE community, a group of people developing and advocating free software for everyday use, for example KDE Plasma 5, KDE Plasma and KDE Frameworks or applications such as Amarok (software), Amarok, ...

including

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit organization established in 2000 to support Linux development and open-source software projects. Background The Linux Foundation started as Open Source Development Labs in 2000 to standardize and prom ...

(LF) – founded 2000 with headquarters in San Francisco, CA, USA; supports development of the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

, and over 60 other projects, only some of which are connected to

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, and advocacy, training, and standards. **

Cloud Native Computing Foundation The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is a subsidiary of the Linux Foundation founded in 2015 to support cloud-native computing. History It was announced alongside Kubernetes 1.0, an open source container cluster manager, which was contri ...

(CNCF) – founded 2015, to promote

containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

. It was announced with

Kubernetes Kubernetes (), also known as K8s is an open-source software, open-source OS-level virtualization, container orchestration (computing), orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Originally designed by Googl ...

1.0, an open source container cluster manager, which was contributed to the foundation by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

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 OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software pla ...

. Previously known as the OpenStack Foundation. * OW2 – founded 2007 with headquarters in Paris, France; focused on infrastructure for enterprise middleware *

(OSI) – founded 1998 with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, USA; steward of the

Open Source Definition ''The Open Source Definition'' (OSD) is a policy document published by the Open Source Initiative. Derived from the Debian Free Software Guidelines written by Bruce Perens, the definition is the most common standard for open-source software. ...

, the set of rules that define open source software * Sahana Software Foundation – founded 2009 with headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, USA; for humanitarian-related software *

Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (also known as "Conservancy") is an organization that provides a Nonprofit organization, non-profit home, infrastructure support, and legal support for free software, free and open source software projects. The ...

– founded 2006 with headquarters in New York, NY, USA; hosts around 40 projects. *

Software in the Public Interest Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization domiciled in New York State formed to help other organizations create and distribute free open-source software and open-source hardware. Anyone is eligible to ...

(SPI) – founded 1997 with headquarters in New York, NY, USA; originally only for the

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

project, it now hosts around 35 projects, some of which are umbrella projects themselves. *

VideoLAN VideoLAN is a Nonprofit organization, non-profit organization which software development, develops software for playing video and other media formats. It originally developed two computer program, programs for media streaming media, streaming, ...

– founded 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. *

freedesktop.org freedesktop.org (fd.o), formerly X Desktop Group (XDG), is a project to work on interoperability and shared base technology for free-software desktop environments for the X Window System (X11) and Wayland on Linux and other Unix-like operatin ...

– founded 2000; hosted by SPI since 2015. Hosts around 25 projects, mostly related to the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

. *

Open Bioinformatics Foundation The Open Bioinformatics Foundation is a non-profit, volunteer-run organization focused on supporting open source programming in bioinformatics. The mission of the foundation is to support the development of open source toolkits for bioinformatics, ...

– founded 2001; hosted by SPI since 2012. Hosts around 10

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

projects. *

– founded 2006; hosts roughly 25 projects related to geospatial technology. *

Open Source Security Foundation The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) is a cross-industry forum for collaborative improvement of open-source software security. Part of the Linux Foundation, the OpenSSF works on various technical and educational initiatives to improve th ...

– founded 2020 * OSADL – founded 2005; supports development of various projects, mostly

-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.

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 2014; supports development of open-source projects around the

.NET The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...

framework. *

Alliance for Open Media The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) is a non-profit industry consortium headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and formed to develop open, royalty-free technology for multimedia delivery. It uses the ideas and principles of open web standa ...

– 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 AlmaLinux is a free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a 501(c) organization, to provide a community-supported, Deployment environment, production-grade enterprise operating system that is Binary-code co ...

. *

Blender Foundation The Blender Foundation is a Dutch nonprofit organization (Stichting) responsible for the development of Blender (software), Blender, an Open-source software, open-source 3D computer graphics software, 3D content-creation program. The foundation ...

– founded 2002; supports development of the computer graphics software

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer (from Latin ''mixus, the PPP of miscere eng. to Mix)'' or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary ...

. * CE Linux Forum – founded 2003; supports development of

for

consumer electronics Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, Communication, communications, and recreation. Historically, these prod ...

devices. * Django Software Foundation – founded 2008; supports development of the web framework Django. *

The Document Foundation The Document Foundation (TDF) is a non-profit organization that supports the development of LibreOffice, a free and open-source office suite. Established in 2010 by members of the OpenOffice.org community, TDF aims to provide a vendor-neutral p ...

– founded 2012; supports development of the office suite

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...

. * Drupal Association – founded 2009; advocates for the

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...

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 Firebird and fire bird may refer to: Mythical birds * Phoenix (mythology), sacred firebird found in the mythologies of many cultures ** Fenghuang, sometimes called Chinese phoenix * Vermilion bird, one of the four symbols of the Chinese constella ...

. * FreeBSD Foundation – founded 2001; supports development of the operating system

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

. * GNOME Foundation – founded 2000; coordinates development of the

desktop environment. * KDE e.V. – founded 1997; supports development of desktop applications by the

community. * Krita Foundation – founded 2013; supports development of the

Krita Krita ( ) is a free and open-source software, free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital art and 2D animation. Originally created for Linux, the software also runs on Windows, macOS, Haiku (operating system), Hai ...

digital painting application. * Kuali Foundation – founded 2005; develops the Kuali family of enterprise resource planning software for higher education institutions. *

MariaDB Foundation MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported Fork (software development), fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Developm ...

– founded 2012; supports development of

MariaDB MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported Fork (software development), fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Developm ...

Server and related advocacy. *

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the Open-source software, open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

– founded 2003; supports and manages development of the

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

project, in conjunction with the

Mozilla Corporation The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, by a global community of open-source developers, s ...

, a for-profit company it owns. * NetBSD Foundation – founded 1995; supports development of the operating system

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...

. * 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 OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

and its utilities. *

OpenStreetMap Foundation The OpenStreetMap Foundation (abbreviated OSMF) is a non-profit organisation whose aim is to support and enable the development of freely-reusable geospatial data. Founded in 2006, it is closely connected with the OpenStreetMap project, although ...

– founded 2006; supports development of the

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...

mapping software. * Perl Foundation – founded 2000; supports development of the

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

programming language, including running Yet Another Perl Conference.
Plone Foundation
– founded 2004; supports development of the

Plone Plone is a free software, free and open source software, open source content management system (CMS) built on top of the Zope application server. Plone is positioned as an enterprise CMS and is commonly used for intranets and as part of the web ...

web content management system. *

Python Software Foundation The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is an American nonprofit organization devoted to the Python programming language, launched on March 6, 2001. The mission of the foundation is to foster development of the Python community and is responsible fo ...

– 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 on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pa ...

. * Ruby Central – founded 2002; supports and advocates for use of the

Ruby Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapph ...

programming language. * Rust Foundation - founded in 2021; supports the

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH) ...

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 A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

. * SIPfoundry – founded 2004; develops the sipXecs communication system, and related advocacy. *

Sourcefabric Sourcefabric is a Czech not-for-profit organisation that develops open source software for independent news media organisations. It is based in Prague, Czech Republic, with branches in Berlin, Germany and Toronto, Canada. Sourcefabric was spun o ...

– founded 2010 as a spinoff from the Media Development Investment Fund; develops software for independent news media organizations. *

Symbian Foundation The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evange ...

– existed 2008–2011; supported development of the discontinued

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

operating system. *

– founded 2009;VideoLAN – History
/ref> supports development of the

VLC media player VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client) is a free and open-source software, free and open-source, software portability, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media Server (computing), server developed by the Vide ...

and related software. *

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

- founded in 2003; develops

MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...

and hosts related websites, such as the English

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

* X.Org Foundation – founded 2004; hosted by SPI since 2014. Does funding and advocacy related to the X Window System. *

XMPP Standards Foundation XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is the foundation in charge of the standardization of the protocol extensions of Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, XMPP, the open standard of instant messaging and presence of the Internet Engineering Ta ...

– founded 2001 as the Jabber Software Foundation; renamed in 2007. Supports development around the

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (abbreviation XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an Open standard, open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Ext ...

communication protocol. * Zope Foundation – founded 2006; it promotes development of the

Zope Zope is a family of free and open-source software, free and open-source World Wide Web, web application servers written in Python (programming language), Python, and their associated online community. Zope stands for "Z Object Publishing Environm ...

platform by supporting the community that develops and maintains the relevant software components.

Cause-specific

* Ada Initiative – existed 2011–2015; advocated the participation of women in FOSS development. *

PyLadies PyLadies is an international mentorship group which focuses on helping more women become active participants in the Python (programming language), Python open-source community. It is part of the Python Software Foundation. It was started in Los A ...

– founded 2011; advocates for female participation in the Python community.

Legal aid

* IfrOSS – founded 2015; provides legal services for free software in Germany. *

Software Freedom Law Center The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is an organization that provides ''pro bono'' legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen ...

– founded 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 :Linux user groups.

References

{{FOSS