About Us

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society.

OASIS promotes industry consensus and produces worldwide standards for security, Cloud computing, SOA, Web services, the Smart Grid, electronic publishing, emergency management, and other areas. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology.

OASIS members broadly represent the marketplace of public and private sector technology leaders, users and influencers. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries.

OASIS is distinguished by its transparent governance and operating procedures. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. Completed work is ratified by open ballot. Governance is accountable and unrestricted. Officers of both the OASIS Board of Directors and Technical Advisory Board are chosen by democratic election to serve two-year terms. Consortium leadership is based on individual merit and is not tied to financial contribution, corporate standing, or special appointment.

The Consortium hosts two of the most widely respected information portals on XML and Web services standards, Cover Pages and XML.org. OASIS Member Sections include AMQP, Blue, CGM Open, eGov, Emergency, IDtrust, LegalXML, Open CSA, and WS-I.

SGML Open

OASIS was founded under the name "SGML Open" in 1993. It began as a consortium of vendors and users devoted to developing guidelines for interoperability among products that support the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The consortium changed its name to "OASIS" in 1998 to reflect an expanded scope of technical work.