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The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the
Open Source Definition ''The Open Source Definition'' is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark. The definition was taken from the exact text of the Debian Free ...
, the set of rules that define
open source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...
. It is a California
public-benefit nonprofit corporation A public-benefit nonprofit corporationCalifornia Code - Part 2: NONPROFIT PUBLIC BENEFIT CORPORATIONS nonprofit_corporation_chartered_by_a_state_governments_of_the_United_States,_state_gover_...
,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type of Nonprofit organization">nonprofit corporation chartered by a state governments of the United States, state gover ...
, with 501(c)(3)">110. - 6910./ref> is a type of Nonprofit organization">nonprofit corporation chartered by a state governments of the United States, state gover ...
, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The organization was founded in late February 1998 by
Bruce Perens Bruce Perens (born around 1958) is an American computer programmer and advocate in the free software movement. He created The Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Ope ...
and
Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...
, part of a group inspired by the Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
for its
flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the ...
Netscape Communicator Netscape Communicator (or ''Netscape 4'') is a discontinued Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the fourth major release in the Netscape line of browsers. It was first in beta in 1996 and was released in June ...
product. Later, in August 1998, the organization added a board of directors. Raymond was president from its founding until February 2005, followed briefly by
Russ Nelson Russell Nelson (born March 21, 1958) is an American computer programmer. He was a founding board member of the Open Source Initiative and briefly served as its president in 2005. Career Nelson wrote code for some programs: In 1983, he co-wrote ...
and then
Michael Tiemann Michael Tiemann is an American software developer and executive, serving as vice president of open source affairs at Red Hat, Inc., and former President of the Open Source Initiative. Biography He earned a bachelor's degree from the Moore Schoo ...
. In May 2012, the new board elected Simon Phipps as president and in May 2015
Allison Randal Allison Randal is a software developer and author. She was the chief architect of the Parrot virtual machine, a member of the board of directors for The Perl Foundation, a director of the Python Software Foundation from 2010 to 2012, and th ...
was elected as president when Phipps stepped down in preparation for the 2016 end of his Board term. Phipps became President again in September 2017. Molly de Blanc was elected President in May, 2019, followed by Josh Simmons in May, 2020. The organization appointed
Stefano Maffulli Stefano is the Italian form of the masculine given name Στέφανος (Stefanos, Stephen). The name is of Greek origin, Στέφανος, meaning a person who made a significant achievement and has been crowned. In Orthodox Christianity the ac ...
as its Executive Director in September 2021, at the end of a process set by the Board of Directors to transform the organization. Josh Simmons is Chair of the Board.


History

As a campaign of sorts, "open source" was launched in 1998 by
Christine Peterson Christine Peterson is an American forecaster, and the co-founder of Foresight Institute. She is credited with suggesting the term "open source" when used in connection with software. Peterson holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from MIT.
,
Jon "maddog" Hall Jon "maddog" Hall (born 7 August 1950) is the board chair for the Linux Professional Institute. Career The nickname "maddog" was given to him by his students at Hartford State Technical College, where he was the Department Head of Computer S ...
,
Larry Augustin Larry Augustin (born October 10, 1962) is a VP at Amazon Web Services. He formerly was the chairman of the board of directors of SugarCRM. He is a former venture capitalist and the founder of VA Software (now Geeknet). During the height of the d ...
,
Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...
,
Bruce Perens Bruce Perens (born around 1958) is an American computer programmer and advocate in the free software movement. He created The Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Ope ...
, and others. The group adopted the
Open Source Definition ''The Open Source Definition'' is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark. The definition was taken from the exact text of the Debian Free ...
for open-source software, based on the
Debian Free Software Guidelines The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in Deb ...
. They also established the Open Source Initiative (OSI) as a steward organization for the movement. However, they were unsuccessful in their attempt to secure a
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...
for 'open source' to control the use of the term. In 2008, in an apparent effort to reform governance of the organization, the OSI Board invited 50 individuals to join a "Charter Members" group; by 26 July 2008, 42 of the original invitees had accepted the invitations. The full membership of the Charter Members has never been publicly revealed, and the Charter Members group communicated by way of a closed-subscription mailing list, "osi-discuss", with non-public archives. In 2012, under the leadership of OSI director and then-president Simon Phipps, the OSI began transitioning towards a membership-based governance structure. The OSI initiated an Affiliate Membership program for "government-recognized non-profit charitable and not-for-profit industry associations and academic institutions anywhere in the world". Subsequently, the OSI announced an Individual Membership program and listed a number of Corporate Sponsors. On November 8, 2013, OSI appointed Patrick Masson as its General Manager. As of August, 2020, Deb Nicholson is the Interim General Manager. Under the direction of Deborah Nicholson, the interim manager, the voting and election was held with results and then halted and set for re-election due to vulnerabilities in the election process. "This week we found a vulnerability in our voting processes that was exploited and had an impact on the outcome of the recent Board Election." No election results or further updates are posted as of June 2021. In January 2020, founder Bruce Perens left OSI over controversy regarding a new license (the Cryptographic Autonomy License), which had been proposed for the OSI's approval. Later, in August 2020, Perens elaborated on his concerns: "We created a tower of babel of licenses. We did not design-in license compliance, and we have a tremendous noncompliance problem that isn't getting better. We can't afford to sue our copyright infringers." Eric S. Raymond, another co-founder of the OSI, was later banned from the OSI mailing list in March 2020. In November 2020 the Board of Directors announced a search for an executive director which was concluded in September 2021 with the appointment of Stefano Maffulli. At the same time, the role of President of the Board was abandoned in favor of Chair of the Board.


Relationship with the free software movement

Both the modern
free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the ...
and the Open Source Initiative were born from a common history of
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
,
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
free software, and the
hacker culture The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy—often in collective effort—the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming the limitations of software systems or electronic hardware (mostly digital electronics), to a ...
, but their basic goals and philosophy differ, the
free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the ...
being more focused on the ethics of software, and their open source counterparts being more focused on practical benefits. The Open Source Initiative chose the term "open source," in founding member
Michael Tiemann Michael Tiemann is an American software developer and executive, serving as vice president of open source affairs at Red Hat, Inc., and former President of the Open Source Initiative. Biography He earned a bachelor's degree from the Moore Schoo ...
's words, to "dump the moralizing and confrontational attitude that had been associated with 'free software'" and instead promote open source ideas on "pragmatic, business-case grounds." As early as 1999, OSI co-founder Perens objected to the "schism" that was developing between supporters of the
Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ( ...
(FSF) and the OSI because of their disparate approaches. Perens had hoped the OSI would merely serve as an "introduction" to FSF principles for "non-hackers."
Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
of FSF has sharply criticized the OSI for its pragmatic focus and for ignoring what he considers the central "ethical imperative" and emphasis on "freedom" underlying
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
as he defines it. Nevertheless, Stallman has described his free software movement and the Open Source Initiative as separate camps within the same broad free-software community and acknowledged that despite philosophical differences, proponents of open source and free software "often work together on practical projects." On March 23, 2021, in response to Richard Stallman's reappointment to the Board of the
Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ( ...
, the OSI released a statement calling upon the FSF to "hold Stallman responsible for past behavior, remove him from the organization's leadership and work to address the harm he caused to all those he has excluded: those he considers less worthy, and those he has hurt with his words and actions." The OSI also stated that they would not participate in any events that include Stallman and "cannot collaborate with the Free Software Foundation until Stallman is removed from the organization's leadership."


Board members

As of August 2021, the Open Source Initiative Board of Directors is: *Deborah Bryant *Megan Byrd-Sanicki *Pamela Chestek *Hong Phuc Dang *Elana Hashman *Tracy Hinds *Aeva Black *Thierry Carrez *Catharina Maracke *Josh Simmons *Italo Vignoli Past board members include: *Matt Asay *
Brian Behlendorf Brian Behlendorf (born March 30, 1973) is an American technologist, executive, computer programmer and leading figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server softwar ...
*
L. Peter Deutsch L Peter Deutsch (born Laurence Peter Deutsch on August 7, 1946, in Boston, Massachusetts) is the founder of Aladdin Enterprises and creator of Ghostscript, a free software PostScript and PDF interpreter. Deutsch's other work includes the Smallt ...
*
Ken Coar Ken Coar is a software developer known for his participation in the creation of The Apache Software Foundation. Open source Coar has been active in open software projects, and lectures internationally about open development methodologies and d ...
*
Danese Cooper Danese Cooper is an American programmer, computer scientist and advocate of open source software. Career Cooper has managed teams at Symantec and Apple Inc. For six years, she served as chief open source "evangelist" for Sun Microsystems befo ...
* Molly de Blanc * Chris DiBona *Karl Fogel * Richard Fontana * Rishab Aiyer Ghosh *
Mike Godwin Michael Wayne Godwin (born October 26, 1956) is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and he created the Internet adage Godwin's law and the notion of an Internet meme, as rep ...
* Harshad Gune *Christine Hall *Leslie Hawthorn *
Joi Ito is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a former director of the MIT Media Lab, former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT, and a former visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Law School. Ito has re ...
*
Jim Jagielski Jim Jagielski (born March 11, 1961) is an American software engineer, who specializes in web, cloud and open source technologies. Biography Jagielski graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1983 with a BES in Electrical/Computer Engin ...
* Fabio Kon * Raj Mathur * Martin Michlmayr *Mike Milinkovich *
Ian Murdock Ian Ashley Murdock (April28, 1973 – December 28, 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. Life and career Although Murdock's parents wer ...
*
Russ Nelson Russell Nelson (born March 21, 1958) is an American computer programmer. He was a founding board member of the Open Source Initiative and briefly served as its president in 2005. Career Nelson wrote code for some programs: In 1983, he co-wrote ...
*
Nnenna Nwakanma Nnenna Nwakanma (Born in 1975 in rural Abia State (south-eastern Nigeria) is a Nigerian FOSS activist, community organizer, development adviser . She worked for the United Nations for 15 years and she was the Interim Policy Director for the World ...
* Andrew C. Oliver *
Bruce Perens Bruce Perens (born around 1958) is an American computer programmer and advocate in the free software movement. He created The Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Ope ...
* Simon Phipps *
Allison Randal Allison Randal is a software developer and author. She was the chief architect of the Parrot virtual machine, a member of the board of directors for The Perl Foundation, a director of the Python Software Foundation from 2010 to 2012, and th ...
*
Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...
*
Guido van Rossum Guido van Rossum (; born 31 January 1956) is a Dutch programmer best known as the creator of the Python programming language, for which he was the "benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL) until he stepped down from the position on 12 July 2018 ...
* Chip Salzenberg *Tim Sailer *Alolita Sharma *Carol Smith * Bruno Souza *Paul Tagliamonte *
Michael Tiemann Michael Tiemann is an American software developer and executive, serving as vice president of open source affairs at Red Hat, Inc., and former President of the Open Source Initiative. Biography He earned a bachelor's degree from the Moore Schoo ...
*
Luis Villa Luis Villa is an American attorney and programmer who worked as Deputy General Counsel and then as Senior Director of Community Engagement at the Wikimedia Foundation. Previously he was an attorney at Mozilla, where he worked on the revision of t ...
* Tony Wasserman * Sanjiva Weerawarana * Stefano Zacchiroli * Chris Lamb *Faidon Liambotis


See also

*
Digital rights Digital rights are those human rights and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, and telecommunications networks. The concept is particula ...
* Comparison of open-source and closed-source software *
Business models for open-source software Companies whose business centers on the development of open-source software employ a variety of business models to solve the challenge of how to make money providing software that is by definition licensed free of charge. Each of these business str ...
* Commons-based peer production – an economic model for organizing projects without leaders or financial compensation *
Open-source governance Open-source governance (also known as open governance and open politics) is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any interes ...
 – use of open-source principles to transform human social governance *
Techno-progressivism Techno-progressivism or tech-progressivism is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory w ...
 – a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social progress *
Open-source-software movement The open-source-software movement is a movement that supports the use of open-source licenses for some or all software, as part of the broader notion of open collaboration. The open-source movement was started to spread the concept/idea of open ...
 – the evolution and evidence of the open-source ideology


References


External links

*
List of OSI approved licenses
{{Open navbox Charities based in California Advocacy groups in the United States Free and open-source software organizations Free culture movement Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Organizations established in 1998