OpenAssetIO accepted in the Academy Software Foundation’s new project framework

Foundry, the leading developer of creative software for the Media and Entertainment industries, today announces OpenAssetIO has been accepted as the Academy Software Foundation’s (ASWF) newest hosted project. 

This Foundry-led project is also the first one to enter the ASWF in the sandbox stage, the earliest entry point for young projects. This stage provides resources and a framework for continued development with the goal of ultimately reaching the incubation stage within one year. 

But what is OpenAssetIO and how is it linked to the ASWF?

Developed by Foundry, OpenAssetIO aims to give artists the ability to find and share deeply connected assets regardless of how and where they’re stored. OpenAssetIO represents a new open-source interoperability standard between tools and asset management systems that minimizes the integration effort and maintenance overhead of content creation pipelines. 

OpenAssetIO standardizes scalable asset-centric workflows by enabling tools and asset management systems to communicate with each other without any restrictions. This means that implementation specifics or codes that link tools together become unnecessary in order to achieve free communication. 

Mathieu Mazerolle, Director of Product, New Technology, Foundry comments: 

“As the demand for more content continues to rise, our industry is scaling up with nimbler and more distributed ways of working. Our hope is that OpenAssetIO lays a foundation over which any creative tool can build better workflows to meet the challenge of how artists need to collaborate at scale. We’re excited to have the Foundation’s support behind this project and, with it, the open source spirit that we believe is essential for sustainable industry transformation.”

Foundry is a founding member of the ASWF, which has adopted a new project framework to guide and support projects through sandbox, incubation and adoption phases prior to wider adoption and implementation by the Foundation.

OpenAssetIO’s journey into the ASWF’s lifecycle will be presented as part of OpenSource Days 22 on Monday August 8 at 1:10 PM PDT. The talk is free to attend, but attendees must also be registered for SIGGRAPH. Registration details can be found here.