OSI Open Reformation Begins in Earnest

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is creating a process for wider participation through working groups and new affiliate programmes which will influence its thinking on its future mission. The programme was unveiled at last week's Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco by OSI board member Simon Phipps. The plans are the result of the OSI's planning for reformation announced in March.

On returning to the UK, Phipps talked to The H about the plan. He explained that previous efforts to set a future mission for the organisation had not been effective. "Agreeing a mission in advance is too hard" said Phipps, as he explained how the OSI was now planning how to evolve the organisation. Historically the OSI, a non-profit corporation with a small board, set out to educate the world about open source. It has also managed a definition of what open source is, and given its blessing to licences which comply with that definition. Now, says Phipps, it is time to take on the second part of the OSI's 1999 mission statement: "to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community".