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Open Source Initiative

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Open Source Initiative
FormationFebruary 8, 1998 (27 years ago) (1998-02-08)
TypeStandards organization[1]
Location
Area served
Worldwide
Interim Executive Director
Deborah Bryant (September 2025 – present)
Anne-Marie Scott, Carlo Piana, Catharina Maracke, Chris Aniszczyk, Gaël Blondelle, Josh Berkus, Ruth Suehle, McCoy Smith[2]
Revenue$811,527[3] (2023)
Websiteopensource.org

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is an American nonprofit organization that maintains The Open Source Definition (OSD), the predominant standard for open-source software.[4][5][6] The organization was founded in February 1998 by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond,[7] 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.

For most of its existence, the OSI's activities have been focused on the definition and certifying software licenses as compliant with it. OSI originally had a closed organizational model, but began to switch towards a membership organization in the 2010s to raise more money and expand its activities.

History

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As a campaign of sorts, "open source" was launched in 1998 by Christine Peterson, Jon "maddog" Hall, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, and others.[7][8]

The group adopted The Open Source Definition (OSD) 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.[9]

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".[10] Subsequently, the OSI announced an Individual Membership program[11] and listed a number of Corporate Sponsors.[12]

On November 8, 2013, OSI appointed Patrick Masson as its general manager.[13] From August 2020 to September 2021, Deb Nicholson was the interim general manager.[14] During the OSI's March 2021 board election, the OSI discovered that at least one voter had exploited a security vulnerability to submit multiple votes; the election results were discarded and the OSI held the election again.[15]

Co-founder Perens resigned from the OSI in January 2020 in response to the organization's then-impending approval of the Cryptographic Autonomy License. Prior to his departure, Perens wrote on the OSI mailing list that the license "isn't freedom respecting", and in a later interview with The Register, he expressed concern about license proliferation, stating that the AGPLv3, LGPLv3, and Apache 2.0 licenses were sufficient.[16]

In November 2020, the board of directors announced a search for an executive director,[17] 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. Maffulli stepped down in September 2025. Deborah Bryant is serving as interim executive director.[18]

In 2025, elections for the board of directors were criticized for many missteps. These included a mistake in communicating the number of seats, which were corrected only after nominations had closed,[19] and the exclusion of three candidates who didn't sign an agreement required after the vote took place and before the votes were counted.[20][21] Voters and other members of open source communities raised concerns about the lack of transparency and the fact that two of the excluded candidates had expressed opinion contrasting those of current directors, and asked to publish the complete tallies (which were retained for excluded candidates) and to invalidate and repeat the election.[20] OSI declined such requests and hold the elections valid.

In January 2026, it was announced that the board of directors had voted to redesign the board member selection process and to suspend 2026 board elections until then.[22]

Governance

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The OSI is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.[23] The organization is professionally overseen by an Executive Director and staff, and supported by its Board of Directors responsible for overseeing duty of care, fiduciary duty, and strategic alignment to mission.[24]

The Open Source Definition

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Main article: The Open Source Definition

The Open Source Definition (OSD) is the most widely accepted standard for open-source software.[25][26] Providing access to the source code is not enough for software to be considered "open-source": it must also allow modification and redistribution under the same terms and all uses, including commercial use.[27] The Open Source Definition requires that ten criteria be met for a license to be approved.[28][1] It allows both copyleft—where redistribution and derivative works must be released under a free license—and permissive licenses—where derivative works can be released under any license.[1][29][30] Software licenses covered by the Open Source Definition also meet the Free Software Definition and vice versa. Both the Free Software Foundation and the OSI share the goal of supporting free and open-source software.[1]

License approval process

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The OSI approves certain licenses as compatible with the definition, and maintains a list of compliant licenses. New licenses have to submit a formal proposal explaining the rationale for the license, comparison with existing approved licenses, and any legal analysis. The proposal is discussed on the OSI mailing list for at least 30 days before being brought to a vote and approved or rejected by the OSI board. Although the OSI has made an effort to have a transparent process, the approval process has been a source of controversy.[31]

Seven approved licenses are particularly recommended by the OSI as "popular, widely used, or having strong communities":[31]

  1. Apache License 2.0
  2. BSD 3-Clause and BSD 2-Clause Licenses
  3. All versions of the GPL
  4. All versions of the LGPL
  5. MIT License
  6. Mozilla Public License 2.0
  7. Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL)
  8. Eclipse Public License version 2.0

The Open Source AI Definition

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In 2022, the OSI began work on The Open Source AI Definition (OSAID) in conjunction with researchers, developers, and industry representatives; version 1.0 was released in October 2024.[32] The definition was criticized by some AI company employees.[33]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Gardler, Ross; Walli, Stephen R (2022). "Evolving Perspective on Community and Governance". Open Source Law, Policy and Practice. Oxford University PressOxford. p. 47–48, 52. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198862345.003.0002. ISBN 978-0-19-886234-5.
  2. ^ "OSI Board of Directors". Retrieved September 25, 2025.
  3. ^ a b "Open Source Initiative - Nonprofit Explorer". ProPublica. December 5, 2025. Retrieved December 17, 2025.
  4. ^ Fortunato, Laura; Galassi, Mark (March 29, 2021). "The case for free and open source software in research and scholarship". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 379 (2197). Royal Society: 10. doi:10.1098/rsta.2020.0079. OSTI 1836982. PMID 33775148. Retrieved December 16, 2025 – via OSTI.
  5. ^ Wen, Shao-Fang; Kianpour, Mazaher; Kowalski, Stewart (January 15, 2020). "An empirical study of security culture in open source software communities". ASONAM '19: Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining. Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 863–870. doi:10.1145/3341161.3343520. Retrieved December 16, 2025. OSS is released under license in compliance with the Open Source Definition as articulated by the Open Source Initiative (also known as the OSI).
  6. ^ Feller, Joseph; Fitzgerald, Brian (December 10, 2000). "A framework analysis of the open source software development paradigm". ICIS '00: Proceedings of the twenty first international conference on Information systems. Association for Information Systems. p. 58. Retrieved December 16, 2025 – via Association for Computing Machinery. Open Source Software is software released under a license conforming to the Open Source Definition (OSD), as articulated by the Open Source Initiative.
  7. ^ a b "History of the OSI".
  8. ^ "A Look Back at 10 Years of OSI". Archived from the original on April 29, 2018.
  9. ^ "Announcement of "OSI Certified" Open Source Mark". Open Source Initiative (Press release). June 15, 1999.
  10. ^ "Become an OSI Affiliate". May 22, 2012.
  11. ^ "OSI Announces Individual Membership". Archived from the original on May 27, 2019. Retrieved July 19, 2012.
  12. ^ "OSI Corporate Sponsors". July 23, 2023.
  13. ^ "OSI Names New General Manager". LWN. October 23, 2013. Retrieved January 27, 2014.
  14. ^ "Deb Nicholson to Join Open Source Initiative as Interim General Manager". Software Freedom Conservancy. Retrieved February 16, 2021.
  15. ^ Claburn, Thomas (March 22, 2021). "Open Source Initiative board election results scrapped after security hole found, exploited to rig outcome". The Register. Retrieved December 16, 2025.
  16. ^ Claburn, Thomas (January 3, 2020). "Bruce Perens quits Open Source Initiative amid row over new data-sharing crypto license: 'We've gone the wrong way with licensing'". The Register. Retrieved January 29, 2026.
  17. ^ "OSI Seeks to Hire Executive Director | Open Source Initiative". opensource.org. November 19, 2020. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  18. ^ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven (September 16, 2025). "The Open Source Initiative's executive director departs - what it means for the OSAID debate". ZDNET. Retrieved December 16, 2025.
  19. ^ Vidal, Nick (January 22, 2025). "OSI's board of directors in 2025: details about the elections". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved January 31, 2026.
  20. ^ a b Brockmeier, Joe (March 21, 2025). "OSI election ends with unsatisfying results". LWN.net. Retrieved January 31, 2026.
  21. ^ "Board Agreement required *post-vote* for all candidates?". Open Source Initiative forum. March 2025. Retrieved January 31, 2026.
  22. ^ Bryant, Deb (January 28, 2026). "2026 OSI Elections Update". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved January 31, 2026.
  23. ^ Boehm, Mirko; Eisape, Davis (2021). "Standard setting organizations and open source communities: Partners or competitors?". First Monday. doi:10.5210/fm.v26i7.10806. ISSN 1396-0466.
  24. ^ "Board of directors". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved December 17, 2025.
  25. ^ Mertic, John (2023). Open Source Projects - Beyond Code: A blueprint for scalable and sustainable open source projects. Packt Publishing Ltd. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-83763-385-2.
  26. ^ De Maria, Carmelo; Díaz Lantada, Andrés; Di Pietro, Licia; Ravizza, Alice; Ahluwalia, Arti (2022). "Open-Source Medical Devices: Concept, Trends, and Challenges Toward Equitable Healthcare Technology". Engineering Open-Source Medical Devices. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 4. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79363-0_1. ISBN 978-3-030-79362-3.
  27. ^ Greenleaf, Graham; Lindsay, David (2018). Public Rights: Copyright's Public Domains. Cambridge University Press. p. 485. ISBN 978-1-107-13406-5.
  28. ^ Erlich, Zippy (2007). "Open Source Software". Handbook of Research on Open Source Software. IGI Global. pp. 187–188. ISBN 978-1591409991.
  29. ^ Meeker, Heather J. (2008). The Open Source Alternative: Understanding Risks and Leveraging Opportunities. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-470-25581-0.
  30. ^ Laurent, Andrew M. St (2004). Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing: Guide to Navigating Licensing Issues in Existing & New Software. O'Reilly Media, Inc. pp. 9–11. ISBN 978-0-596-55395-1.
  31. ^ a b Smith, P McCoy (2022). "Copyright, Contract, and Licensing in Open Source". Open Source Law, Policy and Practice. Oxford University PressOxford. pp. 108–111. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198862345.003.0003. ISBN 978-0-19-886234-5.
  32. ^ Vidal, Nick (December 17, 2024). "2024 end-of-year review: Open Source AI Definition v1.0". Open Source Initiative (Press release). Retrieved October 16, 2025.
  33. ^ Gall, Richard (November 18, 2024). "The Open Source AI Definition: What the Critics Say". The New Stack. Retrieved November 24, 2024.
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