The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) is a trade association. The OSA works with ISVs, system integrators, and the broader

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

community to improve interoperability among

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 ...

products by publishing

best practice A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to alternatives because it tends to produce superior results. Best practices are used to achieve quality as an alternative to mandatory standards. Best practice ...

s, promoting

technical standard A technical standard is an established Social norm, norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and producti ...

s, and making tools and

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

s available.

History

In early November 2006, a group of

application Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

developers got together to form an alliance dedicated to improving interoperability and awareness of their products. Open source development had proven itself at the operating system and middleware layers but had yet to make a significant impact at the application level. Founders identified three important areas where collective action could be successful in lowering barriers to adoption of open solutions by business users: * Define and promote guidelines and best practices for interoperability between applications. * Foster a multivendor metacommunity of users, developers, and systems integrators. * Drive awareness and advocacy All of those present agreed that none of these challenges could be readily addressed by any one vendor in isolation. Issues of awareness, interoperability and community are inherently collective in nature, such that collective action is needed to address them. This led to the decision to create a

trade association A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific Industry (economics), industry. Through collabor ...

. The result was the OSA. In December 2006, The Open Solutions Alliance was incorporated as a 501c6 in the State of California, and the initial founding members officially joined during January 2007.

Members

Notable members of OSA include Palamida, CSC, Concursive Corporation, Essentia Corporation,

Ingres Corporation Actian is an American software company headquartered in Santa Clara, California that provides analytics-related software, products, and services. The company sells database software and technology, cloud engineered systems, and data integra ...

IONA Iona (; , sometimes simply ''Ì'') is an island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a centre of Gaeli ...

, Jaspersoft, Openbravo, SourceForge.net, and

Unisys Unisys Corporation is a global technology solutions company founded in 1986 and headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The company provides cloud, AI, digital workplace, logistics, and enterprise computing services. History Founding Unis ...

References

External links

{{Portal, Free and open-source software Free and open-source software organizations Technology consortia