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

Committing to Community throughout the COVID-19 Crisis

Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2020-04-30 13:46

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Each year the Open Source Initiative relies on the dedicated contributions of individual open source developers and advocates, OSI members, and corporate sponsors. This year, with the global pandemic now affecting so many communities, funding priorities have rightly changed: new initiatives that need dedicated support have emerged, yet many fundamental organizations still need continued support to deliver core services.

December 2019 License-Review Summary

Submitted by administrator on Tue, 2020-04-28 09:15

In December, the License-Review mailing list went over the ESA Permissive PL v2.3, the Mulan Permissive Software License v1 and v2, the LGPL-2+-KDE (Legacy), the Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 4), the CasperLabs Open Source License (COSL), the BSD-1-Clause (Legacy), and the MIT-0 license.

December 2019 License-Discuss Summary

Submitted by administrator on Tue, 2020-04-28 08:35

In December, the License-Discuss mailing list discusseed the relevance of FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) in the context of mobile communication standards, and combining LGPL and MIT licenses under a single LGPL-licensed release.

Using Open Source Tools To Fight COVID-19

Submitted by administrator on Mon, 2020-04-20 05:37

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A guest blog post from The Open Source Center at the Digital Impact Alliance (OSC at DIAL) and OSI Affiliate, ClearlyDefined.

As we all adjust to living with the new realities that COVID-19 has brought, we are reminded how fragile our world can be. However, many open source tools and technologies have been developed that are being used to fight this crisis around the world.

Your Course to Open Source

Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2020-04-17 14:17

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We're adding to our fully-online Open Source Technology Management courses to provide those pursuing a career around open source software even more options. In addition to our fully accredited, credit-barring courses offered through Brandeis University, we've developed six new "micro-courses." Taking just four weeks and guided by high-profile leaders in the open source community, you'll have the opportunity to explore the latest trends and techniques driving open source projects and companies. Case studies highlight real-world scenarios and solutions impacting the creation and delivery of open source software across industries. Group projects provide virtual teams direct experience in the highly collaborative, iterative, and innovative world of open source communities of practice.

And of course, just like our traditional courses, OSI members receive a 15% discount off the cost of our new micro-courses.