Video download link | md5sum 17ea55bffa7f1309cff0c7f16cb20529



Summary: The Open Source Initiative (OSI) changed its public faces and judging by what we've been seeing in recent weeks there's room for hope because of the new leader's history/track record

OUR Web site is not an enemy but a friend of the OSI. For evidence, which exists, look what we wrote about the OSI about a decade ago. It wasn't always what it became in recent years (it could barely run an election) and we expressed concerns, amicably, when we felt like the OSI was going astray.

The new leadership is, on the surface, a step in the right direction. Last month we explained why, but some people might not be happy about this. As if the OSI must crash and burn regardless; the way we see it, the OSI was becoming like Linux Foundation but wasn't quite there (yet). There was still a glimmer of hope, just like Mozilla (need to change management urgently).

Let's hope we can get the old OSI back. Maybe it can even work with the FSF instead of against it (as happened earlier this year).

To be clear, I'm not concern-trolling and in the above video (totally spontaneous) I take a look at the current board and a bunch of other pages, including this new sponsors page, which lists Google and IBM, then Microsoft (twice). As a reminder, the Open Source Initiative is about 95% companies-funded. That was years ago. We doubt they've convinced many individual members to shell out more money since then.

The arrival of Stefano Maffulli as Executive Director of OSI and, as of days ago, the departure of a back-stabbing colleague, who had raised money from Microsoft and attacked RMS after receiving an award from him, is noteworthy. The condemnation of RMS wasn't even based on actual facts!

Let's try a fresh start, judging with an open mind the direction of the OSI, bearing in mind the intolerance of critics from the Board's Chair, still attacking RMS on personal/political grounds, not technical, using pseudo-ethical angles while amassing corporate money, which is the real problem.

Whether we like it or not, for historical reasons OSI still plays an important role. The same is true for Creative Commons. Let's try to fix them, not destroy them. ⬆