Is Open Source Initiative Staring Into the Face of Irrelevancy?

To the extent that Open Source Initiative is known, today it is perhaps best known for controversy rather than for its guardianship of open source.

Founded in 1998, the Open Source Initiative describes itself as “the authority that defines Open Source. For 27 years, it has played an important role in the development of FOSS, although users not involved in software licensing often know little more than its name. Its role as the definer of open-source software, whose licenses emphasize convenience for profit-seeking companies, has traditionally put it in a somewhat uneasy relationship with the Free Software Foundation, which champions free software with licenses emphasizing the rights of all software users.

In 2025 however, as both free software and open source software face increasing attempts to water down their meanings, the “free vs open” distinction perhaps means less than it once did.

Working in Relative Obscurity

If some FOSS users have not heard of OSI, the reason is that much of its work is behind the scenes. Unlike the FSF, OSI has never had a public representative like Richard Stallman to promote a tightly-focused message. Moreover, the FSF regularly investigates license violations, runs campaigns on various issues, and even has annual conferences.

By contrast, OSI’s work is less public, and is only occasionally reported by the media. Where the FSF has detailed information about licenses, and has written new ones over the years, OSI focuses mostly on maintaining the Open Source Definition, and reviewing licenses submitted from outside the organization to determine if they meet the definition.

In spite of the fact that OSI approval has become the gold star for determining whether a software license qualifies as open source — the organization maintains an online list of approved licenses — unless you are interested in FOSS licenses, you can be active in FOSS and aware of little more than OSI’s name. Indeed, OSI’s web page itself notes that “Much of OSI’s advocacy takes the form of quiet persuasion rather than public activism“.

This situation is regrettable, because over the years OSI has made substantial contributions to FOSS. Most of its contributions center around the Open Source Definition, which has become increasingly important as the term “open source” has been watered down in popular usage, often by corporations like Meta that apparently want the prestige of being part of FOSS with none of the social responsibility.

Derived from the Debian Free Software Definition, the Open Source Definition has become a standard for identifying open-source licenses, and has inspired The Open Knowledge Foundation’s Open Definition and The Open Source Hardware Statement of Principles. Although after decades of FOSS new licenses are being approved less frequently than they once were, the license review process remains an important component of OSI. In 2024, for example, OSI approved the Blue Oak Model License, and in 2019 MongoDB famously withdrew Server Side Public License from consideration after it became obvious that OSI wasn’t going to approve it.

OSI Controversies

Unfortunately, during the last decade much of the news about OSI has become more about controversies within the organization than about licensing. Too often these controversies have been aggravated by sensationalist reporting that seems fueled by personal feuds, but that does not change the impression that OSI has been distracted by internal issues that include:

• Microsoft’s membership: Given the mixed feelings about Microsoft in FOSS circles, OSI was inevitably criticized in 2018 when it accepted Microsoft as a member.
• Eric S. Raymond’s expulsion: In 2020, co-founder and former president Eric S. Raymond was banned from OSI’s mailing list for violations of the Code of Conduct in his posts.
• Bruce Perens’ resignation: Also in 2020, Bruce Perens, another founder and the writer of the Open Software Definition, resigned because the OSI was about to approve the Cryptographic Autonomy License. “The organization is rather enthusiastically headed toward accepting a license that isn’t freedom respecting,” Perens wrote on the OSI’s license review mailing list. “Fine, do it without me, please.”

Regardless of who was right in either Raymond’s or Perens’ situations, the clash of personalities was a distraction from OSI’s actual work.

Board Election Irregularities

Even more seriously, OSI’s internal elections have come under scrutiny three times in the last five years. In 2021 OSI announced that “we found a vulnerability in our voting processes that was exploited and had an impact on the outcome of the recent Board Election.” As a result,the announcement went on, “we’ve made a decision to rerun our 2021 board elections.”

In an email to The Register, OSI’s then general manager Deb Nicholson said that the issue was caused by “a vulnerability in our processes and the way we use our database.” She also said, “We’re aware of at least one case where an entity voted more than once.”

A much smaller voting issue occurred in 2023 when OSI’s executive director Stefano Maffulli sent a confusing get-out-the-vote email to members that stated they could vote through “Monday March 21.” The trouble was, March 21 that year fell on a Tuesday, and voting was actually scheduled to end on Monday March 20. OSI quickly fixed that faux pas by extending the voting period.

Another irregular election occurred in 2025. As reported by FOSS Force’s Christine Hall, the irregularities began when Debian developer Luke Faraone’s name was kept off the ballot when a time zone issue caused the nomination to be made late. In addition, there was also confusion over how many affiliate and individual member seats were contested, which affected how candidates would run.

This time OSI refused to re-run the election or to make room for Faraone on the ballot, prompting Hall to head one of the five articles she wrote about the election with, “Open Source Initiative is starting to look like an organization that’s turning its back on its founding principles.”

Defining Artificial Intelligence

During the past year, when OSI has turned to licensing issues surrounding artificial intelligence, controversy did not diminish. In a keynote given at 2024’s All Things Open conference, Maffulli announced the stable release of its Open Source AI Definition Version 1, which defines the qualifications that must be present for an AI system to meet OSI approval if the organization ever decides to launch an AI approval process.

Unfortunately, the definition seems by many to contradict established open-source principles, with the statement that open-source AI “does not require a specific legal mechanism for assuring that the model parameters are freely available to all. They may be free by their nature, or a license or other legal instrument may be required to ensure their freedom.” This contradiction is especially problematic with training data, and has been almost universally condemned.

At best, OSAID as currently written serves as a starting point for further discussion, but it is a poor showing for an organization that claims leadership in licensing issues. Much more controversy, and OSI risks becoming irrelevant.

OSI is not the only FOSS organization to teeter on the brink of irrelevance today, of course. Since the cancellation and resignation of Richard Stallman, the Free Software Foundation has labored mightily to reinvent itself, and in 2025 it looks ready to re-emerge as a force to be reckoned with. Just as OSI was originally modeled after the Free Software Foundation when it was founded 27 years ago, perhaps it should take another example from the same source and re-examine itself. FOSS needs all the suporters it can find.