What is OASIS?

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

What does OASIS do?

OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web services, conformance, business transactions, supply chain, public sector, and interoperability within and between marketplaces.

Who are its members?

OASIS has more than 4,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members.

Members include

• users seeking to ensure their business requirements are heard;
• government agencies wanting to minimize overlap of standards and reduce the risk in recommending new technology;
• software providers driving industry cooperation through standards; and
• industry groups striving to coordinate domain efforts with foundational work.
  
  

Where is OASIS located?

OASIS is an international community creating standards for an international marketplace. With headquarters in North America, OASIS has corporate representation in Europe and Asia, and active member participation in 100 countries on five continents.

How long has OASIS been serving the community?

OASIS was founded in 1993 as SGML Open. Originally, it functioned as a community of vendors and users dedicated to advancing the development of guidelines for interoperability among products that supported the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). In 1998, the organization's legal name was changed to OASIS Open to reflect an expanded scope of technical work, including the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and other related standards.

Does OASIS encourage open participation?

OASIS believes widespread adoption can only be achieved when all those affected by a standard participate in its creation. We offer a range of membership levels to support an inclusive, international, and balanced member base, where users and vendors, governments and universities, trade groups and service providers all have a seat at the table. Archives of all OASIS Technical Committee documents and emails are publicly accessible so even non-members are able to monitor and provide feedback on our work.

What are the IPR Policies of OASIS?

Most OASIS specifications are provided to the public on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis. The OASIS IPR Policy http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.shtml states that contributors of externally developed technical work must identify all IP claims (patents, trademarks, etc.) associated with that work, and must agree to grant use of this technology under RAND or RF terms for purposes of implementing the OASIS specification.

How does OASIS differ from other groups?

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.

How does OASIS coordinate its work with related standards efforts?

OASIS is committed to establishing and participating in liaison relationships with other standards organizations. We acknowledge that no one organization can "do it all" and appreciate that other groups have much to contribute to developing the complete spectrum of technical standards. OASIS maintains formal liaison relationships with W3C, ISO, ISO/IEC JTC1, ITU, UNECE, RosettaNet, and many others.

What are OASIS information channels?

OASIS provides two web sites and three e-newsletters as informational resources for the community at-large. Cover Pages is the oldest and largest online reference collection devoted to interoperable markup language standards. XML.org is a community clearinghouse for XML in specific domains and applications. Members and non-members are invited to subscribe to OASIS News and XML Daily Newslink to stay current on events, opportunities, and accomplishments in the Consortium and the industry.