AMD Joins Academy Software Foundation as a Premier Member

LOS ANGELES, April 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Academy Software Foundation (ASWF), a collaborative effort to advance open source software development in the motion picture and media industries, a neutral forum for open source software development in the motion picture and media industries, today announced that AMD has joined the Foundation as a Premier member and DockYard as a General member.

The Academy Software Foundation also announced today that Open Shading Language (OSL) has joined as the Foundation's sixth hosted project. Initially developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks, Open Shading Language is the de facto standard shading language for VFX and animation and was recognized with an Academy Scientific and Technical Award in 2017.  You can read the announcement here: Open Shading Language Joins Academy Software Foundation.

"We passed our goals of $1M in funding and five new projects in our first year; now we are pleased to welcome AMD and DockYard as new members, and Open Shading Language as our sixth Foundation project. We look forward to working with AMD and DockYard, and leveraging their expertise in graphics, rendering, and software development," said David Morin, Executive Director of the Academy Software Foundation. "Today, our Foundation is strong and our community of engineers is committed. We are ready to face the COVID-19 pandemic and do our part, which is to continue growing the open source model in the motion picture industry so that anyone can use or contribute to our projects from wherever they are, safely at home now or later back at work. We are ready to welcome more projects, host discussions about new projects, and help our open source community of engineers wherever they are in the motion picture industry. We will get through this storm and emerge on the other side, stronger together. 

Member Quotes:

AMD:
"Feature film visual effects and post production are areas of significant focus and interest to us. At AMD, we have a long history of supporting and contributing to open source communities, and we are elated to support the Academy Software Foundation," said James Knight, VFX & Virtual Production Director, AMD. "With the ever-increasing use of AMD's CPUs in the motion picture industry, and as we collaborate with more and more studios, we feel it is imperative to help drive best practices as a major technology provider. It's encouraging to see the Academy Software Foundation membership grow, and we are humbled and grateful to be a part of it."

DockYard:
"The motion picture and media industries are ripe for the development of digital experiences that not only captivate viewers, but also empower their teams to continue to make 'movie magic'," said Jon Lacks, CEO of DockYard, a digital product consultancy. "As evangelists of the open-source community, we're thrilled to support the Academy Software Foundation in its mission to establish best practices for technology collaboration within the entertainment industry."

About the Academy Software Foundation
Developed in partnership by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation was created to ensure a healthy open source community by providing a neutral forum for open source software developers in the motion picture and broader media industries to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation and sound. The Academy Software Foundation is home to OpenVDB, OpenColorIO, OpenEXR, OpenCue, OpenTimelineIO, and Open Shading Language. For more information about the Academy Software Foundation, visit https://www.aswf.io/.

About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at LinuxFoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Inquiries
Emily Olin
Academy Software Foundation
[email protected] 

SOURCE Academy Software Foundation