As the lines between open source and open standards begin to blur, OASIS is taking steps to create a more transparent and collaborative future for open source and standards development. In line with its vision to transform the open source and standards world,, the nonprofit consortium has launched Open Projects.

The program empowers communities to develop what they choose–APIs, code, specifications, reference implementations, guidelines– in one place, under open source licenses, with a path to recognition in global policy and procurement.

As part of the program announcement, OASIS is launching the first two Open Projects – Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) and OpenDocument Format (ODF) Advocacy.

The OSLC Open Project advances a suite of standard REST APIs to connect data and achieve the digital thread across domains, applications, and organizations. It is sponsored by AirBus, Austrian Institute of Technology, Bank of America, Boeing, Dassault, Fujitsu, IBM, Koneksys, Red Hat, Siemens, Software AG, Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, and Tasktop.

The ODF (Open Document Format) Advocacy Open Project promotes the world’s leading document standard. After being approved as an OASIS Standard, ODF was recognized by ISO/IEC and endorsed by governments around the world as a way to ensure permanent access to data and eliminate the risk of vendor lock-in. The ODF Advocacy Open Project is sponsored by CIB and The Document Foundation.

The Open Projects Advisory Council provides strategic insight on the needs of open source projects, identifying current practices that work well and exploring new approaches where improvements can be made with a goal of curating the future of open source.

OASIS said it plans to announce additional Open Projects for blockchain and other areas in the coming months.