Mission

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation with global scope formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community.

Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

One of our most important activities is as a standards body, maintaining the Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The Open Source Initiative Approved License trademark and program creates a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize open source cooperation.



OSI Governance Reform

The OSI Board is in the process of progressing governance reform to transform OSI into a member-based organisation and will be publishing details soon.

January 9, 2012: Come to FOSDEM in Brussels the weekend of February 3-4 and hear OSI director Simon Phipps discuss progress in OSI's governance reform in a Saturday lunchtime keynote, including news of the first Affiliates and ideas on the future membership structure.

March 16, 2011: The OSI Board met for its annual face-to-face meeting this weekend and agreed both to appoint an exceptionally strong group of new Directors and to embark on a process of governance reform. Read more...



Recent News

January 9, 2012: OSI recently approved the new Mozilla Public License version 2, which may prove significant for the open source community.