Add the Open Mainframe Content to Your Schedule and Register Today
SAN FRANCISCO, September 15, 2025 — This year marks the 10th birthday for The Open Mainframe Project, an open source initiative that enables collaboration across the mainframe community to develop shared tool sets and resources, which was first announced on August 17, 2015. Over the past decade, Open Mainframe Project has championed the deployment of Linux and open source software on mainframe systems including on z/OS, fostering an inclusive, innovative ecosystem for technical collaboration and growth. The project, which kicked off the celebration at SHARE Cleveland in August, will continue at IBM TechXchange in Orlando on October 6-9 and GS UK in Northamptonshire on November 3-6.
A Journey of Growth and Impact
Originally launched with 16 founding members, the Open Mainframe Project has evolved into a diverse ecosystem comprising hosted projects, working groups, ambassadors, and contributors from around the world. Initiatives like the Mentorship Program, COBOL Programming Course, and Mainframe Open Education have empowered hundreds of new developers and students to join the community, gain hands-on open source experience, and create a network of like-minded and seasoned mainframers. The Open Mainframe Project now comprises more than 21 sub-projects and working groups that help modernize the mainframe ecosystem through enhanced security, stability, and access.
Open Mainframe Project’s diverse sub-projects add significant value to the ecosystem by addressing key needs such as security, automation, data standards, and developer accessibility—ensuring that the mainframe remains an adaptable and future-ready platform. On z/OS, Galasa, a platform that offers the ability to test applications at scale and Zowe, the open source framework that modernizes and extends mainframe capabilities, are perfect examples.
Galasa: Modernizing Mainframe Testing
Originally developed inside IBM, Galasa provides a modern framework for automated, scalable testing in hybrid cloud and mainframe environments. Since joining the Open Mainframe Project in 2023, the project has established a strong technical community, embraced agile development practices, and attracted new contributors who are already delivering enhancements to its CLI and user interface. Early adopters, such as Macro 4, are exploring Galasa to streamline testing and replace legacy tools, underscoring its value as a next-generation solution for mainframe modernization.
Zowe: Accelerating Mainframe Adoption and Innovation
Zowe is experiencing strong adoption and accelerating momentum across enterprises, vendors, and the global mainframe community. With its open APIs, web-based interfaces, and CLI tools, Zowe makes z/OS and mainframes, in general, more accessible by enabling developers of all backgrounds to use modern tools and practices. This growing adoption demonstrates clear business value: organizations are reducing skills gaps, accelerating digital transformation, and driving new innovation on the mainframe.
Zowe’s project velocity, which is now listed at #31 on the Linux Foundation’s project list for July 2024-July 2025, has an expanding pool of contributors delivering frequent releases, new features, security updates, and performance enhancements. The rapidly growing catalog of conformant extensions underscores Zowe’s flexibility and relevance across industries. At the same time, its community-driven innovation highlights the industry’s commitment to keeping the mainframe a vital, connected, and future-ready platform. In fact, according to the 2024 Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, 85% of the organizations that were surveyed as part of the Mainframe User Survey, reported that Zowe is already running or will be in production soon, underscoring its pervasive adoption across the industry.
From modern frameworks like Zowe and Galasa to educational programs like the COBOL Programming Course and community hubs like zopen Community, Open Mainframe sub-projects are transforming the mainframe ecosystem. They are helping organizations build skills, streamline workflows, and unlock real business value.
Steven Dickens, CEO and Principal Analyst at HyperFRAME Research, helped launch the Open Mainframe Project at LinuxCon 2015 in Seattle. He recaps the last decade and shares his perspective on moving forward into the next decade in this new blog.
Community Day on October 6 at IBM TechXchange
For the third year in a row, the project will again be a central feature on Community Day, kicking off Monday, October 6, 2025, at the Orange County Convention Center. Community Day unites diverse IBM user groups and technical communities to foster collaboration, networking, and learning. It offers free access to open source sessions and user group activities—an ideal opportunity for enthusiasts, developers, and mainframe professionals to dive into the ecosystem without a complete conference pass.
The Open Mainframe Project Community Day schedule includes presentations about CBT Tape, COBOL Working Group, Feilong, Galasa, Linux Distributions Working Group, Mainframe Open Education, OpenTelementry on the Mainframe, zopen community, and Zowe. Check out the full Open Mainframe Project schedule, including a few related sessions that will be featured in the main track. The IBM TechXchange Conference offers technical breakout sessions, hands-on experiences, product demonstrations, instructor-led labs, and certifications tailored to your interests and learning style.
Register for Community Day for free using the Open Mainframe code here. (This only registers you for Community Day on Monday, October 6. It does not give you access to the rest of the IBM TechXchange conference.) Register with the Open Mainframe Project code and link for a 30% discount on the TechXchange conference here.
GS UK Annual Conference on November 3-6
The GS UK Region Conference is an annual event that continues to serve as a cornerstone for collaboration, learning, and advancing the future of enterprise computing. This year, the event will take place from Monday, November 3 to Thursday, November 6, 2025, at Whittlebury Hall, Northamptonshire.
New to last year’s annual event, the Open Mainframe Project had several talks and panels that explored how open source is helping to bridge the skills gap, accelerate innovation, and provide new tools and frameworks that bring the mainframe into the modern developer workflow. This year will continue to highlight projects such as Galasa, Mainframe Open Education, zopen community, Zowe, and more. These initiatives not only demonstrate how open collaboration can unlock value but also how they serve as a rallying point for the next generation of mainframe talent. Videos of the 2024 sessions can be found on the GS UK playlist on the Open Mainframe YouTube channel.
Open Mainframe Project would like to thank this year’s Program Committee
including Donna Hudi, Chief Marketing Officer at Phoenix Software International; Elizabeth K. Joseph, Global Head of the OSPO for IBM zSystems at IBM; Fernando Rijo Cedeno, Senior R&D Software Engineer at Broadcom; and Maemalynn Meanor, Director of Marketing and Communications at the Linux Foundation.
By participating in events like this, the Open Mainframe Project aims to connect and inform all those interested in growing the use of mainframes and related technology in dynamic technical and educational sessions. It is open to students, developers, corporate leaders, users, and contributors of projects from around the globe looking to learn, network, and collaborate. It will feature content tracks that tackle both business and technical strategies for enterprise development and deployment.
The Open Mainframe Project is planning the content for IBM TechXchange and GS UK that is related to the project. The Linux Foundation and Open Mainframe Project are not managing the overall TechXchange or GS UK events. The main TechXchange event is planned and managed by IBM. GS UK plans the GS UK Annual Conference.
For more about the Open Mainframe Project, visit https://www.openmainframeproject.org/.
About the Open Mainframe Project
The Open Mainframe Project is intended to serve as a focal point for deployment and use of Linux and Open Source in a mainframe computing environment. With a vision of Open Source on the Mainframe as the standard for enterprise class systems and applications, the project’s mission is to build community and adoption of Open Source on the mainframe by eliminating barriers to Open Source adoption on the mainframe, demonstrating value of the mainframe on technical and business levels, and strengthening collaboration points and resources for the community to thrive. Learn more about the project at https://www.openmainframeproject.org.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, OpenChain, OpenSSF, OpenStack, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, Zephyr, and more. The Linux Foundation is focused 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.
For a list of trademarks of the Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
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