administrator's blog

Dear Members,

Moving forward, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) will appoint two directors based on the board’s discretion, as opposed to elections held with the individual and affiliate membership. As a result, the OSI Board will consist of 4 members chosen by the individual membership, 4 members chosen by affiliates, 2 members chosen by the board, and the general manager. The majority of the OSI Board will still be elected.

The OSI is seeking passionate practitioners working in and with Open Source Software, to share their knowledge and experience with students interested in the growing number of careers supporting Open Source Software. These faculty roles are employment positions, not volunteer roles, as part of a new academic specialization in Open Source Technology Management.

It has become fashionable today to study open source through the lens of economic benefits to developers and sometimes draw rather alarming conclusions. It has also become fashionable to assume a business model tie and then berate the open source community, or their licences, for lack of leadership when the business model fails. The purpose of this article is to explain, in the first part, the fallacy of assuming any economic tie in open source at all and, in the second part, go on to explain how economics in open source is situational and give an overview of some of the more successful models.

Since he was a child, Marco Marinello has always found computers and how they operate intriguing. His father introduced him to the world of computer science early, including the basics of Linux system administration. Fortunately his own school — and in fact all of the South Tyrol region where he lives — runs a modified version of Debian (“Free Upgrade in Southtyrol's Schools” or “FUSS") for both administrative computing, and significantly for Marco, on student laptops as well. Free and Open Source Software provides schools and students unique educational opportunities while enhancing the technology services offered to teachers, administrators, families, and ultimately the community they serve.

21 years in, the landscape around open source evolved a lot. But is, "open source" enough? According to Thierry Carrez, VP of Engineering at OSI Affiliate Member OpenStack Foundation, open source is necessary, but it is not sufficient. In this post he'll detail why.

Resources designed to fill key skills gaps as open source industry matures.

OSCON – PORTLAND, OR – July 17, 2019 – Brandeis University’s Graduate Professional Studies division (GPS) will partner with The Open Source Initiative® (OSI) to provide new educational offerings for the open source community, the university announced at OSCON 2019.

Generous support from long-standing open source collaborator and contributor will advance open source alignment and foster open standards.

OSCON, Portland, OR - July 15, 2019 – Juniper Networks firmly believes open source and open standards foster greater innovation, and for years has actively participated in a variety of open source communities and key standards bodies, including FreeBSD Foundation, Linux Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and OpenStack Foundation. Today Juniper Networks extends that support though OSI sponsorship.

The definition of open source has been under attack, making the work of the Open Source Initiative more important than ever says OSF’s Thierry Carrez.

PALO ALTO, Calif. - July 2, 2019 -- The Open Source Initiative announced today the affiliate membership of TODO Group. Boasting membership from some of today's most active corporations working in and with Open Source Software, the TODO Group shares experiences, develops best practices, and collaborates around common tooling to address some of the most common challenges related to open source program management, development, deployment, and management.

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering has published an article on company contributions to community open source projects authored by partners in the LIM-IT project. "On Company Contributions to Community OSS Projects" reports an investigation of how practitioners working for businesses interact with eight community OSS projects of various sizes in diverse domains, including cloud computing and the internet of things. The article also investigates why contributors working for companies use particular ways of working to achieve the strategic aims of the businesses that commission their work.