News

Open Source Initiative: October News & Updates

A note from the Executive Director

I consider myself lucky to have witnessed open source changing the world, watching it go from a niche revolutionary idea to owning a place just about everywhere in everyday life. 

It spread because of the principles it embeds: Non discrimination, fairness, collaboration, community and innovation. These principles of open source were written in the Open Source Definition to simplify our way of interacting with the digital world.

Open Source is a Relay Race: Reflections from our Outgoing Interim General Manager

I've been an individual member and occasional volunteer of the OSI for a long time, but signing on in August 2020 as Interim General Manager was a jump into the deep end. Much of OSI's past work was informed by the connections and conversations held with members and stakeholders in person, so we had to chart a different path while still grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

My challenge was to look for ways to continue our work during lockdown, keep the organization moving forward through a transitional year and support the board on its journey towards a visioning body that works with a staff-driven organization. Now it’s time to hand things over to our new Executive Director, Stefano Maffulli but first I’d like to recap my time spent in navigating these waters.

Thank You for a Fantastic First POSI!

We’d like to take a moment to thank our community for making our event on Practical Open Source Information a resounding success -- with more than 300 attendees, 30 speakers, a brilliant keynote address from Heather Leson of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies about the role open source plays in humanitarian efforts, and three tracks, our half-day event proved to be a valuable space for many members of our community to come together and discuss a wide range of pressing issues affecting open source practitioners everywhere. (Recordings of all event talks and panels will be made available shortly!)

To promote and protect open source software and communities...

For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. As a global non-profit, the OSI champions software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement.

Open source software is made by many people and distributed under an OSD-compliant license which grants all the rights to use, study, change, and share the software in modified and unmodified form. Software freedom is essential to enabling community development of open source software.