To promote and protect open source...

As a global non-profit, The Open Source Initiative (OSI) protects and promotes open source software, development and communities, championing software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement. See our about and history pages for more.

Open source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone. Open source software is made by many people, and distributed under licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition.

News

Out of the Trash and into the Class: Building a STEM Program by Re-Building Computers.

Submitted by administrator on Mon, 2016-08-22 13:24

While many agree on the importance of extending resources to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) curricula within K12 education, there isn't always alignment on the best tools or techniques to, as the US Department of Education explains, equip students with the “knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence, and make sense of information,” or schools and districts with the resources and expertise to “improve the delivery

OpenSummit: Open Source Software in—and for—Open Education

Submitted by masson on Wed, 2016-07-27 08:42

Openness has become the new standard for content and software across a variety of initiatives in higher education. The success of open source software on campuses, and the same ethos which fosters its development, is also found in open education, open educational resources, open access publishing, open analytics, open data, open science, and open humanities. These open initiatives have matured to challenge, even dominate, the global educational landscape.

Open Source and Crowdsourcing Are Not Synonyms

Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2016-06-23 13:54

OSI Board alumnus Simon Phipps recently provided some clarification to FastCo.Design around common misunderstandings related to "sourcing". We've seen more and more of these, although most often--like this example--innocent enough. However, these do provide great opportunities to remind the public about what open source actually is, and why it is so valuable.

SysArmy Joins OSI Affiliate Member Program

Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2016-06-10 07:35

New affiliate membership highlights diverse communities of interest supporting open source software beyond programmers.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI), the steward of the Open Source Definition (or OSD), is announcing the affiliate membership of SysArmy. SysArmy, a community of system administrators and IT professionals from Argentina, was founded to provide, "support for those who give support."