ETSI and the Linux Foundation sign Memorandum of Understanding enabling industry standards and Open Source collaboration

San Francisco, US, and Sophia Antipolis, France, 26 April 2019

Today, the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through sustainable open source, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ETSI, the independent organization providing global standards for ICT services across all sectors of industry, to bring open source and standards closer and foster synergies between them.

Building on the existing working relationship between the two organizations, the formal collaboration agreement will enable faster information-sharing and deployment of open networking technologies across the industry. The formal link between communities of experts will encourage and enable collaborative activities, joint communication, promotion and events, as well as potential common initiatives related to interoperability and conformance testing.

It’s encouraging to see how far the industry has come in such a short time,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “This agreement with ETSI signals it’s possible to reach a harmonization of collaborative activities across open source and standards for the networking industry. Working together results in less fragmentation, faster deployments, and more streamlined innovation.

We are eager to deepen our work with the open source communities at the Linux Foundation,” said Luis Jorge Romero, Director-General, ETSI. “Open Source has been part of our working methods and our technical groups, Open Source MANO being an example, for several years now. Further collaboration provides the standards community with a quick feedback loop on how our specifications are being implemented.” 

Areas of mutual interest between ETSI and the Linux Foundation span across a range of technologies, including those focused on NFV, MANO, AI and edge computing.

More details about specific areas of common interest are available on the ETSI Portal.

About ETSI
ETSI provides members with an open and inclusive environment to support the development, ratification and testing of globally applicable standards for ICT systems and services across all sectors of industry and society. We are a not-for-profit body with more than 850 member organizations worldwide, drawn from 64 countries and five continents. Members comprise a diversified pool of large and small private companies, research entities, academia, government and public organizations. ETSI is officially recognized by the EU as a European Standards Organization (ESO). For more information please visit us at www.etsi.org/

About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more.  The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information please visit us at www.linuxfoundation.org.

Media Contacts
Claire Boyer
ETSI
+33 (0)6 87 60 84 40
claire.boyer@etsi.org

Jill Lovato
The Linux Foundation
+1 503 703 8268
jlovato@linuxfoundation.org