The fragmented Internet of Things (IoT) industry just became a little less divided. The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), which sponsors the IoTivity open source project, is merging with the AllSeen Alliance, the group that hosts the AllJoyn open source framework.

The newly merged group will keep the OCF name and will work on interoperability between connected devices. It will also continue to work with the IoTivity and AllJoyn open source projects, however both projects will now be sponsored by the Linux Foundation.

Devices that run on either AllJoyn or IoTivity will be interoperable and backward-compatible. And companies that are developing IoT solutions based on either group’s open source code will be compatible, according to the OCF.

The OCF says that companies just starting their development will either want to start with the OCF specifications and build their own implementation. Or, they will want to use the IoTivity open source reference implementation, which now includes the specs for bridging AllJoyn with OCF, under the Apache 2.0 license. For companies working with AllJoyn, the latest code is available on AllJoyn.org, including interoperable connectors.

OCF’s board of directors will expand to include executives from member companies like AB Electrolux, Arcelik, Arris, CableLabs, Canon, Cisco, GE Digital, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung.

Qualcomm initially designed the AllJoyn protocol and introduced it at the 2011 Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona. In 2013, the Allseen Alliance was created by the Linux Foundation and Qualcomm contributed the AllJoyn source code to the foundation.