The Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) was founded in August 2018 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) as a result of a two-year survey by the Science and Technology Council into the use of Open Source Software (OSS) across the motion picture industry. The survey found that almost 84% of the industry uses open source software, particularly for animation and visual effects, but challenges including siloed development, managing multiple versions of OSS libraries (versionitis) and varying governance and licensing models need to be addressed in order to ensure a healthy open source community.

The mission of the ASWF is to increase the quality and quantity of open source contributions by developing a governance model, legal framework and community infrastructure that lowers the barrier to entry for developing and using open source software.

Goals:

• Provide a neutral forum to coordinate cross-project efforts, establish best practices and share resources across the motion picture and broader media industries.
• Develop an open continuous integration (CI) and build infrastructure to enable reference builds from the community and alleviate issues caused by siloed development.
• Provide individuals and organizations with a clear path for participation and code contribution.
• Streamline development for build and runtime environments through the sharing of open source build configurations, scripts and recipes.
• Provide better, more consistent licensing through a shared licensing template.