The Open Group FACE Consortium announced that organizations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom will be eligible for membership of the aviation-focused professional and technical group. The move is a response to a growing demand from both businesses and the US and other governments as international cooperation grows in importance.
Membership will be open to any business or organization incorporated in or registered to do business in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, or United States. Organizations will be able to sign up for three levels of membership (Principal, Sponsor, or Associate), with unique benefits per level. Once an organization becomes a member of the FACE Consortium, all its employees are eligible to participate, provided they are persons of one of the five countries and complete the appropriate paperwork to become onboarded.
“We are delighted that organizations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK will be able to join the Consortium,” said Alicia Taylor, The Open Group FACE Consortium director. “As a membership-driven organization, opening up to organizations from outside the US will be essential for the next phase of the Consortium. We see the international expansion as an opportunity to learn about the unique needs and initiatives of each country, while maximizing the benefits to all members.”
Steve Nunn, CEO and president of The Open Group commented: “As a global organization, we are proud that with concurrence from the US Department of Commerce, organizations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK will be able to join the Consortium. We believe that the membership expansion will bring new ideas and expertise, allowing current members to learn from new members and vice versa, and we are excited about the new synergies that this will create.”
Chip Downing, Senior Market Development Director, Aerospace & Defense at Real-Time Innovations (RTI) added: “Opening up The Open Group FACE Consortium membership to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom is a watershed event for our organization. We can now tap into the highly diversified expertise of these nations, and deliver joint solutions that accelerate more powerful and interoperable airborne capabilities to global militaries.”
The Open Group FACE Consortium collaborates on developing open software standards to innovate processes and practices, and accelerate FACE adoption. With 90+ government, industry, and academic member organizations, the FACE Consortium has business processes that promote competition and are equitable to both suppliers and end-users; technical practices that enhance and accelerate the development and integration of capabilities; and component-based software standards that define a layered architecture with standard interfaces and a way to describe what data crosses those interfaces.
The Consortium is also addressing all five principles of the US Department of Defense directive of Modular Open System Approach (MOSA), which are equally applicable to global markets. When applied, these principles, combined with the practices and processes described above, enable software portability, reusability, and interoperability.