Welcome to the website of the Dutch Open Source Business Alliance

DOSBA is a representation of Open Source focussed IT-Companies based in The Netherlands. The goal of DOSBA is to bring together Open Source companies and to be a primary point of contact for these collaborating companies, the government and the public sector.

The kick-off was on january 16th at AT-Computing in Nieuwegein, with 25 interested companies in the audience. Boris van Hoytema, Quartermaster of the Open Source Program Office within the Ministry of the Interior, stated he needs “the telephone number of Open Source”. In addition, Sebastian Raible, Political Consultant and representative of APELL explained which Open Source interests and initiatives are relevant in the European Union. Finally, Joost Helberg, Board Member of VOSN passed the Open Source baton in the form of the statutes Vereniging Open Source Nederland, founded in 1999. DOSBA will continue pursuing those goals. We want to thank these speakers and everyone who joined and showed interest.

The next steps for DOSBA in the upcoming weeks are:

• Digest the input received;
• adminstratively change VOSN to DOSBA;
• inspect the statutes, find the HR and propose changes;
• become an APELL member;
• align and learn from other OSBA's;
• represent DOSBA at the Open Source Policy Summit in Brussels;
• set up the (financial) administration;
• prepare next meeting and setup membership possibilities;
• meet you at March 20th 2025.

Let us know, if you haven't already, if you want to become a member or want to become otherwise involved here.

Sincerely, the founding fathers: Ronny Lam (NLUUG), Pieter Izeboud (IT Gilde), Emiel Brok (SUSE), Marcel Kornegoor (AT Computing).