What is the OSB Alliance?

The Open Source Business Collusion (OSBA, OSB Partnership) was established in 2011 to advance open-source programming and other open types of joint effort. Its individuals incorporate notable IT producers and IT clients, instructive and research establishments and people. The OSB Collusion: Government Relationship for Computerized Power eV needs to secure the focal significance of open source programming and open principles in available mindfulness.

In Walk 2022, the number of individuals arrived at 180 organizations from the German open source industry with over €1.7 billion in deals. The OSB Collusion works with logical foundations and client associations. As per its assertions, it needs to lay out open source as the norm in open acquisition, examination and business advancement accordingly.

Story

In 2011, the Linux Solutions Group eV (Log) and the Linux Association eV (LIVE) merged to form the OSB Alliance. The goal was and is to found an alliance for open source in the German-speaking area, strengthening the industry and administration’s trust in open-source software. The Open Source Business Alliance was formed on the striking date of January 1st, 2011.

From then on focused on the topics of interoperability, open standards, open source software, heterogeneous solutions, business development, empty stack and open cloud. In April 2020, the association changed its name to “OSB Alliance – Federal Association for Digital Sovereignty eV”. At the end of 2021, the OSB Alliance celebrated its tenth anniversary.

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Events

In joint open source work, the members organized 14 conferences from the Munich City Hall to the Hamburg Parliament to federal ministries, the C-Base of the Chaos Computer Club and the Berlin Spy Museum. Every year, the OSB Alliance organizes the Open Source Day in Berlin: it is always dedicated to a current topic, in 2018, for example, artificial intelligence and its influence on society or in 2019, the danger of surveillance and espionage.

In addition, the OSB Alliance regularly organizes round tables on changing topics, and the Berlin office repeatedly invites politicians to parliamentary breakfasts with experts. Current events at a glance.

Publications

The OSB Alliance regularly publishes studies, position papers and analyses on current political, technical and strategic issues.

Collaboration In Working Groups

The members of the OSB Alliance exchange information in working groups (“Working Groups”, or WG for short) and implement projects there together. To this end, it provides platforms, forums and events that can be used, for example, to facilitate joint marketing activities that increase the visibility and relevance of topics.

However, the working groups also give more weight to the common goals with developments and standardization contributions under the umbrella of the OSB Alliance, for example, through consortia for publicly funded projects. Working groups can be founded by members and terminated once a goal has been achieved. Currently (March 2022), there are five shared apartments under the umbrella of the OSB Alliance.

WG Continuous License Compliance (CLC)

The working group “Continuous License Compliance” is intended to bring routine and continuity to the handling of open-source licenses and to promote the automation of open-source compliance in cooperation with the community. The OSB Alliance wants to stimulate and encourage the exchange of experiences and best practices and make companies that rely on open-source software more secure and competitive.

WG Education

The “Education” working group aims to identify concrete solutions for the stagnating digitization in the German education sector. It focuses on digitally available infrastructure components for communication and collaboration in the education sector, offered by active members of the OSB Alliance.

WG Events

In coordination with the office, the “Events” working group aims to define which events the OSB Alliance should be represented in and how the presentation should ideally be structured (lecture, fair trade stand, etc.). In addition, the WG Events plans and organizes the events of the OSB Alliance, such as the Open Source Day and the regular online event “Members & Products”.

WG Public Affairs

The Working Group “Public Affairs” formulates the positions represented by the OSB Alliance towards politics and public administration and coordinates direct and regular contact with politicians. She organizes events for political decision-makers and works in European forums. The WG Public Affairs also regularly publishes publications, for example, on:

1. Sustainable use of the open source for digitally sovereign administration
2. Position paper cloud and digital sovereignty
3. OSBA position paper: The state must end the messenger dilemma on three levels!
4. Handout for using the EVB-IT when using open-source software

WG Security

Security through open source, security from open source, security in critical infrastructures and open source supply chain management are the topics of the Working Group “Security “, in which experts from the field of security have come together to work together and exchange experiences.

Projects

In its history, the OSB Alliance has always helped to develop practical solutions, from successful crowdfunding to OOXML in Libre Office 2013 to projects in the education sector, specific help with tenders (EVB-IT) or the development of an open source code Repository for administration and the forum for digital sovereignty.

Forum For Digital Sovereignty – Open Source In The Public Sector

Running until 2020 as the focus project “Open Source as a driver for digitization, sovereignty and innovation in the public sector”, the “Forum for Digital Sovereignty” was created in 2021 as part of the OSB Alliance. The work of this project is reflected in publications such as:

1. Sustainable use of the open source for digitally sovereign administration
2. Position paper cloud and digital sovereignty
3. Handout for using the EVB-IT when using open-source software

Sovereign Cloud Stack 

The “Sovereign Cloud Stack” project is intended to provide the technical foundation for the European cloud project Gaia-X, which enables complete digital sovereignty. Since 2019, financed with funds from the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations SPRING, the project has received development funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) since 2021. To this end, the Open Source Business Alliance is building a growing team that controls and coordinates standardization, software integration and network structure.

The OSB Alliance has successfully promoted the emergence of a community of employees from interested companies around this team and corresponds the tenders for essential building blocks to companies. In addition, the OSB Alliance builds its test and development platforms.

OSCAR

The OSB Alliance regularly presents the Open Source Business Award, better known by its nickname “OSBAR”. This OSB Alliance innovation award goes to projects, startups or brilliant ideas from the open-source environment. It gives them a public platform to gain more users, developers, supporters or business partners through increased attention. Previous award winners are:

1. 2014: Openslides, Voice over LTE, WebODF
2. 2015: FHEM, Oposso, Zugferd
3. 2016: Zammad, openATTIC, privacyIDEA
4. 2017: Rust, OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set Project, Kodi, Prefix
5. 2018: Open Project, Humhub, Inkscape

Management And Contact Person

Every two years, the OSB Alliance members elect the association’s board. Peter Ganten (Univention GmbH) is currently CEO, followed by Anja Stock (SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH) as 1st Vice President and Hong Phuc Dang (INTEC GmbH) as 2nd Vice President. The contact person for political communication is Miriam Seyffarth in Berlin, the head of the office in Stuttgart is Dorothee Otto, and the contact person for the media is press officer Lisa Reisch.

Members

The 180 members of the OSB Alliance span various membership types. Small companies and users are represented from “designers” to sponsoring members, corporations, and medium-sized companies. The spectrum ranges from IBM, SUSE or Deutsche Telekom to training service providers, software developers and authorities.