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.