Author Archives: OSI Policy Team

Announcing OSI’s New Interim General Manager

The Open Source Initiative is bringing in Deb Nicholson as its new Interim General Manager. Nicholson will be supporting the organization through a period of growth and introspection over the upcoming year as stakeholders continue building on the non-profit’s past successes. She will be overseeing day-to-day operations, including marketing, staffing and infrastructure, as well as supporting board and volunteer activities. 

OSI’s President, Josh Simmons elaborates, “We’re thrilled to welcome Deb as an Interim General Manager at OSI. Her credentials are top notch, and she’s well respected within the free and open source software communities… I couldn’t ask for a better partner as OSI works through its second major transformation! Deb’s roots in the software freedom community and at Conservancy bode well for our movements as we strive to present a more unified front to advance our shared goals.”

February 2020 License-Discuss Summary

In February, the License-Discuss mailing list discussed the OSD and compulsory user reporting, the delisting of licenses, the MIT-Clone and conern on the copyright notice, GDPR/CCPA and the Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 4), the CERN Open Hardware License 2.0, Ethical Open Source Licensing – Persona non Grata Preamble, Fairness vs Mission Objectives of the OSI, ethical open source licensing – Dual Licensing for Justice, discouraging governments from creating bespoke licenses, and the psychological relationship between an author and the work. 

License Review Process Update

We’d like to update you on some work we have underway on improving the OSI’s work on reviewing open source licenses. We’re working on two initiatives, one substantive and one…

OSI Spring 2020 Newsletter

Welcome to the Open Source Initiative’s quarterly newsletter. We hope the information shared in each edition provides you with interesting insights into our initiatives and activities. We also hope to…

OASIS Open Joins Open Source Initiative

Shared vision and combined resources extend both organizations’ ability to advance open source through standards.

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PALO ALTO, Calif., June 30, 2020 — The Open Source Initiative® (OSI), the internationally recognized steward of the Open Source Definition and open source licenses, is excited to announce the Affiliate Membership of OASIS Open, a global nonprofit consortium managing a broad technical agenda encompassing cybersecurity, blockchain, privacy, cryptography, cloud computing, IoT, urban mobility, emergency management, and other content technologies.

OSI Standards Newsletter Q2 2020

Welcome to the 2020 mid-year newsletter from OSI’s Standards and Policy office. This update is for Advisory Board representatives and Working Group members (see below) and may be distributed within…

State of the Source Summit

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A World-wide Open Source Summit: Build your local community, while engaging the global community.

The State of the Source Summit invites open source communities of practice from around the world to organize and contribute to a global conversation on the current state of open source software: non-technical issues that foster development and community, the licenses that enable collaboration, the practices that promote contribution, and the issues confronting cooperation.

Conference Goals

  • Share the current state of open source licenses: understanding their value and impediments to further adoption.
  • Identify current, non-technical, issues affecting open source software, development, and communities through the lenses of developers, companies, and projects.
  • Conceptualize and plan for what the future may hold for open source software as a community and the Open Source Initiative as an organization.

OpenJS Foundation Joins Open Source Initiative as Newest Affiliate Member

Membership emphasizes growing outreach and engagement with broader software and technology communities.

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PALO ALTO, Calif., June 9, 2020 — The Open Source Initiative® (OSI), the international authority in open source licensing, is excited to announce the affiliate membership of the OpenJS Foundation, the premier home for critical open source JavaScript projects, including Appium, Dojo, jQuery, Node.js, and webpack, and 30 more. The OpenJS membership with the OSI highlights the incredible impact of JavaScript across all industries, web technologies, communities, and, ultimately, the open source software movement.