The Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) is a United States non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the development and implementation of open source Software solutions within U.S. federal, state and municipal government agencies and academic entities. OSSI was established in 2000 and maintains offices on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi and at the Stennis Space Center.

OSSI was created to serve as a liaison between the Open source movement, the IT industry and government and academic entities. OSSI s activities are defined by its three major tenets:

=Achievements=

OSSI has been effective establishing inroad with the United_States_Department_of_Defense, especially through its work with the United_States_Navy. In 2001, OSSI and the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) conducted a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to explore, identify and document the Navy s existing usage of open source programs within the NAVOCEANO enterprise system. The results of the CRADA findings are available [http://oss-institute.org/NCRADA-01-008-ExecSum-081303-publicrelease.pdf here].

In February 2005, OSSI is entered into a second CRADA with the Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (CNMOC) to explore the Navy s usage of open source systems within CNMOC s web services, scientific computing, and business/office systems.

Since 2003, OSSI has been engaged with the Defense Medical Logistic Standards Support (DMLSS) in order to secure the National Institute of Standards and Technology FIPS_140-2 validation for OpenSSL. An updated chronology of the project is available [http://oss-institute.org/index.phpoption=content&task=view&id=39 here].

=External links=