 | |
| Formation | February 8, 1998 |
|---|---|
| Type | Standards organization [1] |
| Location |
|
Area served | Worldwide |
Executive Director | Stefano Maffulli (September 2021 – present) |
| Budget | US$ 209,500 (2019) [3] |
| Revenue | US$ 209,500 (2019) [4] |
| Website | opensource |
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a California public benefit corporation "actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software". [5]
The OSI is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. [6] 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.
The Open Source Definition is the most widely accepted standard for open-source software. [7] [8] 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. [9] The Open Source Definition requires that ten criteria be met for a license to be approved. [10] [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] [11] [12] 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]
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. [13]
Seven approved licenses are particularly recommended by the OSI as "popular, widely used, or having strong communities": [13]
In 2022, OSI began work on an Open Source AI Definition (OSAID), inviting researchers, developers, and industry representatives to collaborate on a draft in a co-design process.
The release of the Open Source Artificial Intelligence Definition (OSAID) working draft, version 1.0 was launched in October 2024.
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. [14] [15]
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. [16] 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. [17]
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". [18] Subsequently, the OSI announced an Individual Membership program [19] and listed a number of Corporate Sponsors. [20]
On November 8, 2013, OSI appointed Patrick Masson as its general manager. [21] From August 2020 to September 2021, Deb Nicholson was the interim general manager. [22] 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." [23] No election results or further updates are posted as of June 2021 [update] .[ citation needed ]
In November 2020 the board of directors announced a search for an executive director [24] 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.
In October 2009, the OSI lost its corporate status, having been suspended by the state of California for failing to submit paperwork on time. [25]
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. [26] 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." [27] [28]
Eric S. Raymond, another co-founder of the OSI, was later banned from the OSI mailing list in March 2020. [28] He had claimed "OSI has been suborned and is betraying its founding commitment to freedom" the month prior, taking exception to proposed licensing changes that "would be a direct and egregious violation of OSI's charter and [his] intentions in founding OSI". [29]
The October 2024 release of the Open Source AI Definition (OSAID) was controversial, opening up new disagreements and considerable ill-feeling. [30]
| General | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Software packages | |||
| Community | |||
| Organisations | |||
| Licenses |
| ||
| Challenges | |||
| Related topics | |||
