Ahead of its annual Open Source Days conference dedicated to highlighting the latest in open source projects used for visual effects, animation, and image creation, the Academy Software Foundation is pleased to welcome two new members: Canonical and The Khronos Group.
Launched in August 2018 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation provides a neutral forum for open source software developers to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation and sound.
“Both Canonical and the Khronos Group are leaders in the broader open source ecosystem, each in its own unique way,” said David Morin, Executive Director of the Academy Software Foundation. “Canonical develops important products and services based on open source Linux distributions, and the Khronos Group develops open standard specifications that are implemented widely in 3D graphics and other fields. We are honored to welcome them both at the Academy Software Foundation.”
Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, the number one operating system in the public cloud, and provides enterprise security, support and services. Canonical’s aim for media and entertainment is to make open source a first choice solution for creative professionals. Ubuntu Server provides a path to share workloads, scale production or distribute content in new ways to ensure that digital creatives can focus on what they do best – planning, making and sharing great content.
The Khronos Group is a member-driven, non-profit Standards Developing Organization (SDO) that creates open, royalty-free interoperability standards for 3D graphics, augmented and virtual reality, parallel computation and the metaverse. Khronos standards include glTF, OpenGL, OpenXR, WebGL and Vulkan, that are used widely across the VFX, animation and real-time 3D graphics industries.
The Khronos Group, alongside the Academy Software Foundation, are also founding members of the recently announced Metaverse Standards Forum which is uniting leading standards organizations and companies to drive the interoperability standards needed to build the open metaverse.
Open Source Days 2022:
Open Source Days returns in person on August 8-9 during SIGGRAPH, at the Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver. The free event brings together the motion picture industry’s open source community to collaborate and learn about open source software for visual effects, animation, and content creation. View the schedule and register for the event at https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-days/.
New Member Quotes:
“Canonical and its people have a passion for open source, in all its forms. We want to be able to collaborate with the industry’s pioneers, developers, and artists to make open source solutions a first class experience for digital media and entertainment, and to remove technical barriers to adoption. The Academy Software Foundation is a group where competition is put aside and collaboration is encouraged to improve the software experience for all, embodying the collaborative spirit of open source. We are excited to be a part of this Foundation and hope to be able to collaborate with as many groups as possible,” said Erick Bryant, Media and Entertainment Lead, Canonical.
“Becoming a member of the Academy Software Foundation will enable us to further strengthen our relationship with the VFX and animation communities to ensure that Khronos standards adapt and evolve to better serve their requirements. Khronos is looking forward to sharing information with the experts in the ASWF membership and contributing to open source projects such as MaterialX, and fostering closer coordination with Khronos standards including glTF, OpenXR and Vulkan,” said Neil Trevett, President, Khronos Group.
Companies interested in supporting the mission of the Academy Software Foundation can learn more about membership and join at aswf.io/join.
