The Linux Foundation’s FOSSBazaar Nearly Doubles its Membership

The Linux Foundation’s FOSSBazaar Nearly Doubles its Membership

Leading Linux consortia announces new members to participate in open source software governance initiative

SAN FRANCISCO, October 14, 2008 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and open source software, today announced that its Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) governance workgroup, called FOSSBazaar, has nearly doubled its membership since launching in January.

The newest members include Ars Aperta, Black Duck, BT, Krugle, Palamida, and nexB, which contribute to 15 total members today.

Like proprietary software, FOSS requires due diligence to ensure legal, financial and security compliance. FOSSBazaar is the Linux and open source community’s approach to sustaining FOSS as a dependable choice for IT departments.

During its inaugural year, FOSSBazaar has both established an online destination where collaboration on these topics takes place (https://fossbazaar.org) and appointed full-time workgroup community leader Martin Michlmayr. Michlmayr is a well-known figure that currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Open Source Initiative (OSI). He has been involved in FOSS projects for more than 10 years, including having led the Debian project for two years. FOSSBazaar has also participated in collaborative forums this year such as the Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit and OSCON.
“Software is increasingly comprised of components that are assembled from the open source community and other external sources,” said Bill McQuaide, Executive Vice President of Products and Services, Black Duck Software. “We are pleased to be joining the FOSSBazaar team who shares our commitment to evangelizing open source and educating software developers about how to use it safely and effectively.”
Jeremy Ruston, head of Open Source Innovation at BT Design said: “We believe that evolving good governance for FOSS is best done collaboratively, giving organizations the opportunity to share best practices and learn from one another. Through becoming a strategic partner in FOSSBazaar, we are pleased to have the opportunity to work alongside industry peers to make a valuable contribution to the FOSS community and play a key role in advancing the state of the art in FOSS governance.”

“nexB is very pleased to join FOSSBazaar because it fosters an open solution to leveraging and managing open source software in software products and enterprise IT,” said Philippe Ombredanne, CTO at nexB. “The best solutions for the open source software supply chain will come from applying open source methods and tools to the challenges at hand.”

“We are pleased to be joining FOSSBazaar,” said Mark Tolliver, CEO of Palamida. “It has rapidly become a highly valuable community site and we look forward to adding our expertise in open source management practices to make it even better and, as a result, to enable more organizations to realize the benefits of an open source strategy.”

FOSSBazaar was created as a Linux Foundation workgroup in order to share information and best practices for the adoption and management of open source software by enterprises, institutions and governments. The initiative was founded by Coverity, DLA Piper, Google, HP, the Linux Foundation, Novell, Olliance Group, OpenLogic and SourceForge.

About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation 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. For more information on the Linux Foundation please visit www.linuxfoundation.org.

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