OSI logo
The
Open Source Initiative (
OSI) is an organization dedicated to promoting
open source software.
The organization was founded in February 1998, by
Bruce Perens and
Eric S. Raymond, prompted by
Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the
source code for its
flagship Netscape Communicator product. Later, in August 1998 the organization added a board of directors.
Raymond was president from its founding until February 2005. The current president is
Michael Tiemann.
Relations with the free software movement
Although born from the same history of
Unix,
Internet free software, and the
hacker culture as the
free software movement launched by
Richard Stallman and his
Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative was formed and chose the term
open source, in
Michael Tiemann's words, to "dump the moralizing and confrontational attitude that had been associated with 'free software' in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape."
Stallman counter-charges that OSI's pragmatic focus on a model for software development and marketing ignores what he considers to be the central "ethical imperative" and the focus on "freedom" that underlies
free software, as he defines it, and blurs the distinction with semi-free or wholly
proprietary software.
To Stallman, the important, fundamental difference is philosophical. Nevertheless, he describes his free software movement and the Open Source Initiative as separate camps within the same
free software community. According to Stallman, "We disagree with the open source camp on the basic goals and values, but their views and ours lead in many cases to the same practical behavior—such as developing free software. As a result, people from the free software movement and the open source camp often work together on practical projects such as software development."
History
The movement was launched in 1998 by
Jon "maddog" Hall,
Larry Augustin,
Eric S. Raymond,
Bruce Perens, and others. Raymond is probably the single person most identified with the OSI and the "open source" movement; he was and remains its self-described principal theorist, but does not claim to lead it in any exclusive sense. The open source movement is steered by a loose collegium of elders that includes Raymond, its other co-founders, and such notables as
Linus Torvalds,
Larry Wall, and
Guido van Rossum.
The founders were dissatisfied with what they saw as the confrontational attitude of the
free software movement, and favored advocating free software exclusively on the grounds of technical superiority (a claim previously made by Raymond in his essay
The Cathedral and the Bazaar). It was hoped that open source and the associated propaganda would become a more persuasive argument to businesses. Raymond's comment was
"If you want to change the world, you have to co-opt the people who write the big checks."The group adopted the
Open Source Definition for open-source software, based on the
Debian Free Software Guidelines, which in turn was based on
The Free Software Definition. 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 act as an imprimatur and to prevent misuse of the term. Despite this, the OSI developed considerable influence in the corporate sphere and has been able to hold abuse of the term to a tolerable minimum. With the
Free Software Foundation (FSF), it has become one of the hacker community's two principal advocacy organizations.
The early period of the open-source movement coincided with and partly drove the dot-com boom of 1998─2000, and saw a large growth in the popularity of
Linux and the formation of many open-source-friendly companies. The movement also caught the attention of the mainstream software industry, leading to open-source software offerings by established software companies such as
Corel (
Corel Linux),
Sun Microsystems (
OpenOffice.org), and
IBM (
OpenAFS). By the time the dot-com boom busted in 2001, many of the early hopes of open-source advocates had already borne fruit, and the movement continued from strength to strength in the cost-cutting climate of the 2001─2003 recession.
In 2009, the organization was suspended from operation as a California corporation.
Board members
The current Open Source Initiative board is:
Past board members include:
Open-source-related movements
Indonesia
Malaysia
See also
- Techno-progressivism - a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social progress
