What is the OSC?

The Open Source Consortium (OSC) represents the Open Source business community in the UK. We currently have over 80 members - more than any other FOSS business consortium in Europe.

As a not-for-profit organisation, we guarantee the quality of Open Source deployments by setting professional standards and bonding our members. In doing so our aim is to help our members win more business within the UK's public and private sectors.

Membership of the OSC is open to organisations with a proven commitment to providing high-quality, enterprise-ready IT solutions based on Open Source components.

How do we act?

• As an 'Internal Market' for F/L/OSS services (Strategic Consultancy, Deployment Consultancy, Training, Support). A public sector body can submit a project that we can put out for internal tender and introduce that body to those members who wish to tender against each other for the project. This saves them from having to find those companies themselves.
• In 'Mini-Consortium' mode. Several OSC members can act together to tender for medium-sized public sector projects. Combining areas of expertise to field a bigger team than any of them can do on their own.
• In OSC, or 'Full-Consortium' mode. The OSC will tender for the largest projects as the OSC. Drawing from the combined resources of almost every F/L/OSS business in the UK, the OSC represents the single largest deployment force of F/L/OSS professionals in Europe.

Who do we partner with?

The OSC already has formal relationships with a number of players in the governmental/public sector field, including:

• Open Standards Alliance
• Open Source Software Institute
• Schoolforge UK
• Gnome Foundation
• OpenDocument Foundation