Free Standards Group

The Free Standards Group (FSG) was an independent, non-profit organization founded in 1998 with the aim of strengthening the use of free and open-source software by developing and disseminating appropriate standards. The most famous project of the Free Standards Group was the Linux Standard Base working group .

In 2007 it merged with the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to form the Linux Foundation , which took over the tasks, projects and members of both the Free Standards Group and the Open Source Development Labs .

The Free Standards Group recently focused on the following main tasks:

Development and improvement of existing standards
Development and implementation of test and certification programs to support these standards
Enforcement of the LSB label with distributors and programs

The Free Standards Group was supported by many companies in the Linux environment, including in 2006 Red Hat , Novell , Mandriva , Progeny, Turbolinux , Red Flag Software, Miracle Linux, Beijing Co-Create Software Company, Sun Wah Linux, Thiz Linux, IBM , Intel , HP , AMD , Dell , Sun Microsystems , Veritas Software , BakBone Software, Google , Qt Software and MySQL .

Working groups

In addition to the Linux Standard Base working group, there were also other working groups that dealt with standardization. The OpenI18n group worked on a basis for the linguistic internationalization of programs and distributions in order to localize them later more easily. The OpenPrinting working group dealt with the demands on professional printer solutions such as management, reliability, security, scalability, etc., while the Accessibility group defined standards to enable access to Linux systems for disabled people.

Other, sometimes smaller, working groups each dealt with different sub-areas of the overall topic of standardization of Linux.

Web links

freestandards.org ( Memento from April 23, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) The former project page (English) leads to that of the Linux Foundation
Oliver Diedrich: With united forces on Linux standards. In: Heise online . May 9, 2000 (message about the merger with Linux Standard Base and Openl18n). Retrieved December 7, 2016.

Individual evidence

↑ Oliver Diedrich: Open Source Development Labs and Free Standards Group merge. In: Heise online . January 22, 2007 . Retrieved December 7, 2016.

[heiseonline_136907-1] Oliver Diedrich: Open Source Development Labs and Free Standards Group merge. In: Heise online . January 22, 2007 . Retrieved December 7, 2016.