Open Source Initiative
Sign in to saveAlso known as OSI, opensource.org
Non-profit organization promoting open-source software
Key facts
- Formation
- February 8, 1998 (28 years ago) ( 1998-02-08 )
- Type
- Standards organization
- Location
- West Hollywood, California , U.S.
- Region served
- Worldwide
- Interim executive director
- Deborah Bryant (September 2025 – present)
- Board of directors
- Anne-Marie Scott, Carlo Piana, Catharina Maracke, Chris Aniszczyk, Gaël Blondelle, Josh Berkus, Ruth Suehle, McCoy Smith
- Revenue
- $811,527 (2023)
- Website
- opensource .org
via Wikipedia infobox
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is an American nonprofit organization that maintains The Open Source Definition (OSD), the predominant standard for open-source software. The organization was founded in February 1998 by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, part of a group inspired by the Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product. Later, in August 1998, the organization added a board of directors.
For most of its existence, the OSI's activities have been focused on the definition and certifying software licenses as compliant with it. OSI originally had a closed organizational model, but began to switch towards a membership organization in the 2010s to raise more money and expand its activities.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Open Source Initiative” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.