PARIS, FRANCE: Two prominent open source organizations, the OW2 Consortium and the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) – representing developers, vendors, consumers, and communities throughout the world, today announced their merger plans to constitute a global platform for supporting research, development, distribution, and adoption of open source software at all levels of the information systems stack.

The OW2 Consortium is based in Paris with commercial, academic, and individual members in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Initially founded to develop a code base of open source middleware, the community has broadened its scope in recent years to include applications.

The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), based in California with commercial and end-user members in the United States and Europe, was created to drive the adoption of open source applications in enterprises and the collaboration between commercial open source vendors to enhance and increase the interoperability of open source solutions.

The combined organization would use the global reach, market penetration, and broad technical skills of its members to develop a diversified code base and portfolio of open source components, advocate for open source software, and promote collaboration and the open source model for development and innovation in enterprises, academia, and government, said a press release.

"When you look at each organization's strengths in technology and market presence, as well as the global positioning of our members, OSA and OW2 look like two puzzle pieces waiting to be put together," said Cedric Thomas, OW2 CEO.
"We can do much more together than apart, and a combined entity will provide a single voice for open source worldwide and a unique global pool of open source resources," he added.

"Open source software has quickly matured as a robust alternative to proprietary software, first in the infrastructure stack, and now in business applications," said Anthony Gold, OSA president.

He further said that Open source solutions meet business critical needs while offering flexibility and cost advantages to end users. By merging OW2 and OSA, they can drive that message home to IT professionals, CIOs, and CEOs throughout the business community, education, and government.