Foundation of European Open File System Society
On 16 December 2010, the European Open File System (EOFS) Society was founded in Munich. The initiative to cooperate on this topic originated from JSC. As a legal form the Societas Cooperativa Europaea (SCE, European Cooperative Society) was selected. The purpose of this non profit organization is to
- promote the establishment and adoption of an open source parallel file system,
- sustain and enhance its quality, capabilities and functionality,
- ensure that the specific requirements of European organizations, institutions and companies are considered,
- ensure that engagement and activities with other organizations will not directly or indirectly interfere with the intellectual property or other contractual and legal obligations of its members,
- facilitate the extension of business operations to non-members.
- The following 14 organizations are founding members: Forschungszentrum Jülich, Bull GmbH, CEA/DAM, Data Direct Networks, Universities of Paderborn and Zürich, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, credativ GmbH, T-Platforms, HPCFS, Mellanox, Whamcloud, Leibniz Rechenzentrum (LRZ) and ParTec GmbH.
At the founding meeting several members expressed their satisfaction about the fact that this is the first time a Europe-wide consortium has engaged in the open-source development of high-speed file systems. It was agreed that such an important piece of file system software should not be made proprietary with no absolute guarantee of future access. On the contrary, the organization should establish an open source code base, prioritize the development efforts, and improve the functionality and stability of the underlying parallel file system. Furthermore, the intention was expressed to build a bridge to similar development efforts in the United States.
The next meeting will take place on 22 March 2011 in Munich. This is a good opportunity to further enlarge the membership as a number of additional companies have expressed their intention of joining this organization.
(Contact: Klaus Wolkersdorfer)
from JSC News No. 192, February 2011