The Free Standards Group was an industry non-profit consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

 chartered to primarily specify and drive the adoption of open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 standards

Open standard

An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....

.

All standards developed by the Free Standards Group (FSG) were released under open terms (the GNU Free Documentation License

GNU Free Documentation License

The GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...

 with no cover texts or invariant sections) and test suites, sample implementations and other software were released as free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

.

On January 22, 2007, the Free Standards Group and the OSDL

OSDL

Open Source Development Labs was a non-profit organization supported by a global consortium tasked to "accelerate the deployment of Linux for enterprise computing." Founded in 2000, its goals included "to be the recognized center-of-gravity for the Linux industry."On January 22, 2007, OSDL and the...

 merged to form The Linux Foundation, narrowing their respective focuses to that of promoting Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 in competition with Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

.

Work groups

FSG responsibility for the following work groups has now transferred to The Linux Foundation:

• The Linux Standard Base
  Linux Standard Base
  The Linux Standard Base is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system...
  
  , a set of interface standards allowing for the ultimate portability of applications across various Linux versions and distributions. Conformance with this specification is certified by The Open Group
  The Open Group
  The Open Group is a vendor and technology-neutral industry consortium, currently with over three hundred member organizations. It was formed in 1996 when X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation...
  
   (under contract with the Free Standards Group).
• The Open Internationalization Initiative (OpenI18N), a standard that creates a foundation for language globalization of compliant distributions and applications
• The Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority
  Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority
  The Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority is a central registry of names and numbers used within Linux. It was created in 2000 by H. Peter Anvin, and its current maintainer is Torben Mathiasen...
  
   (LANANA)
• OpenPrinting, creating a scalable printing architecture and high-level requirements for a standardized printing system
• Accessibility, developing accessibility
  Computer accessibility
  In human-computer interaction, computer accessibility refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability or severity of impairment...
  
   standards for free and open source platforms
• Open Cluster, defining a set of clustering interface standards
• The DWARF
  DWARF
  DWARF is a widely used, standardized debugging data format. DWARF was originally designed along with Executable and Linkable Format , although it is independent of object file formats...
  
   Debugging
  Debugging
  Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware, thus making it behave as expected. Debugging tends to be harder when various subsystems are tightly coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to emerge...
  
   Format Standard

Corporate members

• Advanced Micro Devices
  Advanced Micro Devices
  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
  
  
• Dell
  Dell
  Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
  
  
• Hewlett-Packard
  Hewlett-Packard
  Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
  
  
• Intel Corporation
  Intel Corporation
  Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
  
  
• International Business Machines
  IBM
  International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
  
  
• Mandriva
  Mandriva
  Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A...
  
  
• Miracle Linux
  Miracle Linux
  Miracle Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Miracle Linux Co., Ltd., a company which Oracle Corporation owns 50.5 percent stock. Originally, it was designed to be an OS with good support of Oracle Database...
  
  
• Google
  Google
  Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
  
  

• MontaVista
  MontaVista
  MontaVista Software is a software developer that develops embedded Linux system software, development tools, and related software. Its products are targeted at other corporations developing embedded systems such as automotive electronics, communications equipment, mobile phones, and other...
  
  
• Oracle Corporation
  Oracle Corporation
  Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
  
   (Platinum Member)
• Red Hat
  Red Hat
  Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
  
  
• SCO Group
  SCO Group
  TSG Group, Inc. is a software company formerly called The SCO Group, Caldera Systems, and Caldera International. After acquiring the Santa Cruz Operation's Server Software and Services divisions, as well as UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, the company changed its focus to UNIX...
  
  
• Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
  
  
• Novell
  Novell
  Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
  
   (through its acquisition of SUSE
  SUSE Linux distributions
  SUSE Linux is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making...
  
  )
• Turbolinux
  Turbolinux
  -Linux distribution:The Turbolinux distribution was created as a rebranded Red Hat distribution by Pacific HiTech employee Scott Stone. Scott was the lead release engineer through version 3.6....
  
  
• VA Software

Not-for-profit members

• Japan Linux Association
• Linux International
  Linux International
  Linux International, also known simply as LI, is a worldwide, non-profit association of groups, corporations and others that work towards the promotion of growth of Linux and FOSS. It is headed by Jon "maddog" Hall....
  
  
• Linux Professional Institute
  Linux Professional Institute
  The Linux Professional Institute Inc. is a non-profit organization that provides vendor-independent professional certification for Linux system administrators and programmers....
  
   (LPI)
• Open Source Development Labs (OSDL)
• PC Open Architecture Developers' Group
  PC Open Architecture Developers' Group
  PC Open Architecture Developers' Group is a consortium of the major Japanese personal computer manufacturers. Sponsored by IBM during the 1990s, it successfully guided Japan's personal computer manufacturing companies at that time into standardising to an IBM PC-compatible...
  
   (OADG)

• Software in the Public Interest
  Software in the Public Interest
  Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is a non-profit organization formed to help other organizations create and distribute free/open-source software and open-source hardware...
  
   (SPI)
• Software Liberty Association of Taiwan (SLAT)
• The Open Group
  The Open Group
  The Open Group is a vendor and technology-neutral industry consortium, currently with over three hundred member organizations. It was formed in 1996 when X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation...
  
  
• USENIX
  USENIX
  -External links:* *...
  
  Association

The Free Standards Group also had individual memberships; the board of directors was elected annually by all of the membership.