A new foundation, announced today, will attempt to promote a free, "open source" alternative for cloud computing.

The OpenStack Foundation, announced at the OpenStack conference in Boston, will maintain a suite of free software tools for building and managing a cloud-computing platform. The OpenStack software suite includes software for computation, storage, networking, and system management.

Many companies have flocked to cloud computing. It removes the need for expensive up-front investments in information technology departments, since computer power and storage can simply be leased. However, most cloud services are proprietary, and the technology used to run them is kept secret. Once a company signs up for one cloud service, it can be difficult to move to another provider.