BOSTON (Reuters) - The world's biggest technology companies have agreed to donate millions of dollars to set up a group that will fund improvements in open source programs like OpenSSL, the software whose "Heartbleed" bug has sent the computer industry into turmoil.
Amazon.com Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Facebook Inc, Google Inc, IBM, Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp are among a dozen companies that have agreed to be founders of the group, known as Core Infrastructure Initiative. Each will donate $300,000 (178,731.01 pounds) to the venture.
The non-profit Linux Foundation announced formation of the group on Thursday.
It will support development of open source software that makes up critical parts of the world's technology infrastructure, but whose developers do not necessarily have adequate funding to support their work, said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the world leaders in on-line distribution of products to the general public. The group also operates a marketplace activity, allowing individuals and distribution companies to conduct their purchase and selling transactions for goods and services. The activity is organized around three families of products and services:
- electronic and computer products: toys, cameras, computers, laptops and peripherals, TVs, stereo systems, readers, wireless communication products, etc. Amazon.com also offers kitchen and garden equipment, clothing, beauty products, etc.;
- cultural products: books, musical products, video games and DVDs;
- other: primarily Internet interface and application development services.
Net sales break down by source of income between sales of services (55.5%) and sales of products (44.5%).
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States (68.8%), Germany (6.5%), the United Kingdom (5.9%), Japan (4.5%), and other (14.3%).
AMAZON.COM, INC. 
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