About us About us

About us


For over 15 years, Open Source Certification has been working
with the Linux Professional Institute

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) is the global certification standard and organization that supports the careers of open source professionals. With more than 200,000 certification holders, it is the world's first and largest vendor-neutral certification body for Linux and open source. LPI has certified professionals in over 180 countries, offers exams in multiple languages, and has hundreds of training partners. 

Open Source Certification GmbH represents the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) in the market as LPI Platinium Channel Partner - Europe. As a partner, we seek and support additional LPI partners for the LPI programs as part of our business activities.

Our goal is to inform about the possibilities and advantages of a Linux certification and to build a network with partners and people, which promotes the spread and professionalization of Open Source and Linux in Europe

In October 2001 at the Linux World Expo I met the then LPI president Evan Leibovitch and we started to build up a German speaking representation of the LPI. In 2003 the time had come and we founded the LPI e.V. German. We met in the rooms of the former SuSE Linux AG in Nuremberg.

The founding members at that time from left to right: Frank Nausedat for future Training & Consulting GmbH, Dimitrios Bogiatzoules as representative of the community, Karin Dubielzig for Geco AG, Reiner Brandt -1st chairman, Dr. Johannes Loxen as managing director of Sernet GmbH, Manfred Winter as board member of GFN AG, Michael Weyrauch for SuSE Linux AG and Oliver Michel as managing director of Linup Front GmbH.

Our association goal was to improve the attractiveness of continuing education for Linux and Open Source in German-speaking countries and to inform about the advantages of LPI Linux certification. Both SuSE Linux AG and Linupfront were committed to German-language LPI learning materials, and the former Linupfront (now tuxcademy.org) learning materials are still very popular today. We as an association were also very involved in translating the exams into German and so after only a few months we were able to successfully offer the first German language exams in the DACH region. The success in the German-speaking region overtook us and we were no longer able to handle all the work within the association structures alone.

In 2006, we then founded Open Source Certification GmbH out of the association. There we hired our first staff for the activities in our region. In contrast to the non-profit organization in Canada, it was not possible for us to establish this as a non-profit GmbH in Germany due to the high requirements and the nature of the activity (marketing and sale of certifications).


First T-shirt campaign in 2006 at the Linuxtag in Wiesbaden.

(At that time the logo color was still red)

With a Master Affiliate (sister company) contract from the Linux Professional Institute we officially represented the Linux Professional Institute in Central Europe as LPI Central Europe from 2006 to 2021.

From 2022 we will continue our current work for our partners as LPI Platinium Channel Partner.

We will not be able to offer direct candidate support as before from 1.1. 2022. 

Please contact LPI directly at info@lpi.org!


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