To promote and protect open source software and communities...

For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. As a global non-profit, the OSI champions 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.

Open source software is made by many people and distributed under an OSD-compliant license which grants all the rights to use, study, change, and share the software in modified and unmodified form. Software freedom is essential to enabling community development of open source software.

News

Job Opening: Principal Software Engineer for ClearlyDefined

Submitted by administrator on Sat, 2020-03-07 11:03

We are excited to announce the growing OSI Incubator Project, ClearlyDefined is now seeking a Principal Software Engineer.

Would you like to work with companies developing open source software and the broader open source community? Are you interested in open source compliance? Does a job working as, part technical architect, part community manager, and part evangelist sound interesting and rewarding?

The Hard Work of Critical Conversations in Open Source

Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2020-03-04 15:00

Open source is bigger and more diverse than ever before. With that success comes challenges, some new and some old, but all of them on a larger scale than ever before.

As we grow and convene more people and viewpoints, the conversations will get more difficult. In some ways, that’s good--vigorous discussions help us clarify our shared understanding and pushing the boundaries helps us find where those boundaries are. We evolve appropriately to meet the needs of a changing world.

OSI Files Amicus Brief in Supreme Court's Google v. Oracle

Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2020-01-15 08:22

header, SCOTUS

The Open Source Initiative is proud to join OSI affiliate members Creative Commons, Mozilla Foundation, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Wikimedia Foundation along with other small, medium and open source technology organizations in filing an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief in the Google v. Oracle case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

An Appeal From The OSI President

Submitted by Molly de Blanc on Thu, 2019-12-26 16:09

I want to write to you a triumphant message about what a wonderful year it has been for open source and the Open Source Initiative (OSI). There has been a lot to celebrate as an organization and a community. More than 600 of you are now members of the OSI, making us stronger than we’ve ever been before. We have increased staffing capacity, which makes it so we can do more of the necessary work to fulfill our mission. Open source adoption is on the rise and people continue to do amazing, innovative things with open source technology.

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