All members of The Open Group are entitled to participate in selected work areas in which we work with suppliers, consortia and standards bodies to develop consensus and facilitate boundaryless information flow, to evolve and integrate open specifications and open source technologies.
The major message is that the Forums and Work Areas are where Customers and Vendors come together to execute the work of The Open Group.
The value to customers is that The Open Group addresses real needs.
The value to vendors is that they are able to design products to meet real needs.
Once we have established requirements, The Open Group encourages dialogue between customers and suppliers and work with other consortia working in the same area.
We group these work areas into packages, called Forums. Although some work areas are relevant to more than one Forum so members of both may participate.