The Open Source Initiative Still Lives

Published: Jan 24, 2007
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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There was a time when the Open Source Initiative was one of the hotbeds of open-source activity. After the retirement of its co-founder and leader, Eric Raymond, in January 2005, the OSI lost much of its fire. That may be changing soon, though.

An investigation by Linux-Watch has found that there is still heat in what appeared to be the organizations quiet ashes.

Whats the OSI? Basically, the nonprofit OSI, founded in 1998 by Raymond and others, was formed for the purpose of “managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community, specifically through the OSI Certified Open Source Software certification mark and program.” In short, the OSI was traditionally the group that decided whether a license is true-blue “open source” or not.

After Raymond left, leaving the organization briefly in the hands of Russ Nelson, founder of Crynwr Software, Michael Tiemann, Red Hats vice president of open-source affairs, became the OSIs president.

/zimages/4/28571.gifRead the full story on Linux-Watch.com: The Open Source Initiative Still Lives

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

I'm editor-at-large for Ziff Davis Enterprise. That's a fancy title that means I write about whatever topic strikes my fancy or needs written about across the Ziff Davis Enterprise family of publications. You'll find most of my stories in Linux-Watch, DesktopLinux and eWEEK. Prior to becoming a technology journalist, I worked at NASA and the Department of Defense on numerous major technological projects.

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