The Open Source Business Foundation (OSBF, www.osbf.de) founded in Nuremberg in May 2006 is a European-wide open source network. The members of OSBF are companies, institutions and persons inspired by open source software. The activities of the network always focus on the business benefits of open source software. The Articles of Association of OSBF accordingly define the purpose of the association as strengthening the open source software and service industry and creating and safeguarding jobs in the development and service sectors.
OSBF also has political tasks and goals. The importance of open source software is to be improved by actively coordinating opinion-making among OSBF members and by lobbying third parties such as associations and politics. Typical fields of activity are improving the political framework for the use of open source software, legal aspects of patents and licenses, local authority contract awarding guidelines or promoting the use of open source software in small and medium enterprises. OSBF is to intensify dialog with ministries and political parties in Berlin and Brussels for this purpose.
