Mission

The 50 charter members have been mandated by the current OSI board to develop a new governance model based on membership for the Open Source Initiative (OSI) to help it better meet its objectives. The OSI’s objectives include stewardship of the Open Source Definition, approval of open source licenses, promotion of open source and education about open source and stewardship of the OSI’s assets including trademarks and website.

The Charter Membership is empowered to draft a proposed governance model which must be ratified by the OSI Board before it can take effect. The Board favors an approach that changes the board incrementally over a period of three years and that rewards members who consistently focus on making OSI better through direct contributions of work.

Overall Goals:

The charter membership is charged with the following goals:

1. Establishing first year objectives for the charter members to accomplish
2. Defining a mechanism for nominating and electing Board members

Specific goals include:

1. Gradual replacement of OSI’s self-elected system with a staggered election of board members.
2. Provide a basis for the OSI to better represent the global open source community.
3. Define a process whereby the membership can assume primary responsibility for conducting the OSI’s work.
4. Building a pool of volunteers who will work on its current mission and expand it as appropriate. The current mission can be viewed at www.opensource.org/articles-of-incorporation

Deliverables and Dates:

1. May 15, 2009: Proposal for first year objectives of accomplishments by the charter members.
2. May 22, 2009: Proposal for OSI’s new membership-based governance including voting mechanism.
3. May 29, 2009: Submit final revisions of proposals to board.
4. June 3, 2009: OSI Board Meeting