The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) was formed to speed the creation and adoption of integrated, interoperable open solutions for business customers. To encourage community participation in support of this goal, the OSA is sponsoring "hack-a-thons," each one focusing on a specific interoperability topic of concern to customers today.

The first such event will be at OSCON 2007, and will focus on single signon (SSO). Developers of any open source application with knowledge of its authentication mechanisms are welcome to participate. Interested developers should be prepared with their application of choice pre-installed on their laptop, and follow the preparation instructions.

It is highly recommended that developers attend the OSA SSO tutorial on Tuesday afternoon. The OSA plans to have a "charging" station at the tutorial and its booth where developers can download the latest versions of sources/software on to their thumb drives.

At the hack-a-thon, participants can expect to be exposed to the latest and greatest thinking around SSO and make it work on their applications, and contribute to open discussion regarding recommended best practices.