Who we are and What we do

OpenForum Europe (OFE) is a not-for-profit industry organization which was originally launched in 2002 to accelerate and broaden the use of Open Source Software (OSS) among businesses, consumers and governments. OFE's role has since evolved and its primary role now is to promote the use of open standards in ICT as a means of achieving full openness and interoperability of computer systems throughout Europe. It continues to promote open source software, as well as openness more generally as part of a vision to facilitate open, competitive choice for IT users.

OFE is a registered interest group with the European Commission that devotes much of its time to explaining the merits of openness in computing to politicians and legislators across Europe.

OFE works closely with the European Commission, European Parliament, national and local governments both directly and via its national partners. It fully supports the European Commission's Digital Agenda, which aims to create a flourishing digital economy in Europe by 2020.

OFE maintains an ongoing dialogue with key decision makers. It participates actively in public consultations that concern the industry and often serves as an interlocutor between legislators and the wider open computing community. Once a year it hosts a Summit at which top European policymakers and thought leaders from the industry share their views about the importance of open computing. In 2010 Vice President Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda provided the keynote.

OFE corporate members are Google, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat and Deloitte. OFE has national partners from across Europe, representing many tens of thousands of SMEs. It also has a partnership with the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)and collaborates with the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). These are two of the leading free and open source software campaign groups in Europe. OFE also collaborates with the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS).