# FOSS Open Standards/Glossary
## American National Standards Institute

    The American National Standards Institute is a private, non-profit organization that administers and coordinates the US voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system.

## Business Software Alliance

    The Business Software Alliance is a trade group representing some of the world's largest computer software and hardware manufacturing companies. The BSA is involved in programmes that promote copyright protection, cyber security, trade and e-commerce.

## British Standards Institute

    This is the National Standards Body of the United Kingdom.

## European Interoperability Framework

    The European Interoperability Framework for pan-European e-Government services provides a framework to facilitate the interoperability of the e-Government services of the European Union member states.

## European Computer Manufacturers Association International

    ECMA International is an industry association dedicated to the standardization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Consumer Electronics (CE). ECMA, in co-operation with the appropriate National, European and International organizations, develops standards and technical reports to facilitate and standardize the use of ICT and CE.

## European Information, Communications and Consumer Technology Industry Association

    The European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations (EICTA) was formed by a consolidation of two former European federations of the information and telecommunications industries, the European Association of Consumer Electronics Manufacturers and the European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association. EICTA states that it is dedicated to improving the business environment for the European information and communications technology and consumer electronics sector, and to promoting the industry's contribution to economic growth and social progress in the European Union.

## Free and Open Source Software

    Free and Open Source Software is a term used to collectively refer to software that conforms to the definitions produced by either the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative. FOSS is usually released under at least one of the software licenses recognized by these organizations.

## Free Software Foundation

    The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit organization based in the USA. Its mission is to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all Free Software users.

## GNU's Not UNIX

    The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete UNIX-like operating system which is free software - the GNU system. Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the Linux kernel, are now widely used. GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX"

## GNU General Public License

    The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a free software license originally written by Richard Stallman for software under the GNU Project. Under the GPL, the software can be freely redistributed, source code is made available and modification and re-distribution of the modified software is permitted. The GPL incorporates the concept of "copyleft" in which derivative works of a GPL-licensed software must be licensed under the GPL also. The GPL is the most popular of the FOSS licenses.

## Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens

    The Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC) is a community programme managed by the European Commission's Enterprise and Industry Directorate General. It uses the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies to encourage and support the delivery of crossborder public sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe, to improve efficiency and collaboration between European public administrations and to contribute to making Europe an attractive place to live, work and invest.

## Joint Photographic Experts Group

    The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is the working group of ISO that defined the popular JPEG Imaging Standard and more recently the JPEG 2000 family of Imaging Standards.

## Motion Pictures Experts Group

    The Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) is a working group of ISO/IEC charged with the development of video and audio encoding standards. It is responsible for the family of standards used for coding audio-visual information (e.g., movies, video, and music) in a digital compressed format.

## Open Source Initiative

    The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit organization dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition, specifically through the OSI Certified Open Source Software certification mark and programme. A piece of software is recognized as Open Source software if it is released under a license certified by the OSI.

## Open Source Development Labs

    The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of GNU/Linux in the enterprise. Its membership comprises most of the prominent commercial players in the open-source industry as well as some academic institutions. It provides state-of the-art computing and test facilities in the United States and Japan available to developers around the world.

## Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX

    POSIX is an acronym for Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX, a set of IEEE and ISO standards that define an interface between programs and operating systems. Programs that conform to POSIX developed on one system can be ported more easily to other POSIX-compliant operating systems (this includes most variants of UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems).