Linux’s 35th Anniversary and the Open Frontier

Members Newsletter – September 2026

Dear OSI community,

I’d be remiss if I didn’t open by wishing Linux a happy 35th birthday. I can’t pretend to have accomplished nearly as much by the age of 35 as Linux has, but neither was I nurtured by such a vast community of contributors and supporters. We can’t lose sight of that. Open Source is what it is because of the people who led us here, and keep us here. We all joined the community for different reasons, but many of us stayed because of the relationships and partnerships we built along the way, connections that run deeper than the code.

I get asked almost every day about the future of Open Source. One of my consistent answers is that people who love writing code will keep wanting to write code together. I believe that’s as true today as it was before AI tools, Git, the OSI, the World Wide Web, Perl, or C entered the chat. But we’re also passing through a moment of unquestionable transition. AI tools and agents are testing our processes, policies, laws, licenses, and beliefs in real time.

That’s why the OSI is engaged with several stakeholders, including the Mozilla Foundation, the Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Linux Foundation, and the Open Forum for AI. We recently encouraged the Linux Foundation to submit the OpenMDW License for review and we worked together with the Open Forum for AI on a statement in supporting calls for the U.S. to develop more open models. We need to understand whether the licenses and processes we’ve historically used for software will serve us as we think about Models and AI Systems. That process will be messy. It requires discussion, debate, and working through the problem. That’s a feature, not a bug.

And that brings me back to the people. We’ll be hosting an OSI track at All Things Open on October 20 in Raleigh, where we’ll share an overview of our work over the last year, a look at what we’re thinking about for 2027, and some thought-provoking content for newcomers and seasoned veterans alike. I hope you’ll join us. You can view the schedule here.

Warm regards,
Duane O’Brien
Executive Director, OSI

PS: If you’ll be celebrating Linux’s 35th Anniversary at Open Source Summit Europe on October 9-10 in Prague, I’ll be there celebrating with you. Let’s have a chat!

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