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
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- nonprofit organization
- Country
- United States
- Founded by
- Eric S. Raymond
- Headquarters
- El Camino Real
- Revenue
- 343964
- Legal form
- nonprofit organization
- Official website
- opensource.org
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Open Source Initiative
- interested in
- open source
- different from
- Open Systems Interconnection
- inception
- 1998-02-00
- short name
- OSI
- social media followers
- 60085
- donations
- 171270
- total assets
- 586633
- Mastodon instance URL
- social.opensource.org
Sources (9)
via Wikidata · CC0
~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.