Open Source Initiative
Trademarked OSI "keyhole" logo
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| Formation | February 1998 |
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President
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Allison Randal |
| Website | opensource |
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is an organization dedicated to promoting open-source software.
The organization was founded in late February 1998 by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, part of a group inspired by the Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator 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 and then Michael Tiemann. In May 2012, the new board elected Simon Phipps as president and in May 2015 Allison Randal was elected as president when Phipps stepped down in preparation for the 2016 end of his Board term.
As a campaign of sorts, "open source" was launched in 1998 by Jon "maddog" Hall, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, and others.
The group adopted the Open Source Definition for open-source software, based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines. 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 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. Public information indicates that the group included Bradley M. Kuhn, Karl Fogel, Jim Blandy, Chamindra da Silva, Lawrence Rosen, and David Ascher. Then-OSI Board member Danese Cooper was the principal moderator of osi-discuss. Kuhn later recollected that the Charter Membership was a "brouhaha (bordering on a flame fest)" and took no action.
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