URL: http://www.openfoundry.org

Principal Investigators:

[Jane Win-Shih Liu]

[Tyng-Ruey Chuang]

[Jan-Ming Ho]

Open Source Software Foundry

The goal of the OSSF project is to adopt the notion of "Free/Libre Open Source Software" (FLOSS) to develop a solid foundation for e-society. There are four statements in the vision of OSSF. The first vision is to utilize information and Internet technology to build and run a public arena for developing a FLOSS community where people share software knowledge and practice collaboratively. The second is to cultivate the spirit of knowledge sharing, collaboration, and willingness to devote and to patch into software developers. The third is to assist the government and industry to spread the usage of FLOSS products and the associated development process. The last is to become a strategic place in worldwide FLOSS industry.

The OSSF team has developed and deployed the Open Foundry and is in charge of its operation and maintenance. OSSF is now open to the public (to both individuals or groups). Registered users may use project management tools of the OSSF system to manage their FLOSS projects. The tools include version control, release control, forum, issue tracker, and kwiki, and others. In order to advance project management and business applications, OSSF also plans to provide accountability measurements to help summarize activities in project development processes. OSSF is built upon free software and is also released as free software.

Besides collaborations with existing FLOSS communities, OSSF also put efforts in promoting the government, academic, research institutes and industry to release their software source code under FLOSS licenses.

OSSF also works on the analyses of FLOSS licenses and national policies worldwide. It provides training courses to users, and helps projects make their choices of FLOSS licenses. OSSF conducts surveys on local FLOSS communities, designs training course, and holds workshops. OSSF members also participated in related international events including AOSSS (Asia Open Source Software Symposium) and WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society). Because of their expertise, OSSF members have been invited to give lectures on legal issues about FLOSS in the 3rd AOSSS, March 2004, Vietnam.

OSSF is a sub-project of national FLOSS industry promotion program and is partially funded by MOEA/IDB, NSC, and Academia Sinica, Taiwan.