This year, on February 3rd, marks the 20th anniversary of the term Open Source. The open source initiative is gearing up for celebrations and activities all year. They’ve put together a pdf which you can download that has information on the founding of the Open Source Initiative, and thoughts from the previous directors.
Here’s an excerpt from the pdf.
The “open source” label was created at a strategy session held on February 3rd, 1998 in Palo Alto, California. That same month, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded as a general educational and advocacy organization to raise awareness and adoption for the superiority of an open development process. One of the first tasks undertaken by OSI was to draft the Open Source Definition (OSD). Till this day, the OSD is considered a gold standard of open-source licensing.
Although adoption of the term “Open Source” had support from many, including the founders of Linux, Sendmail, Perl, Python, Apache, and representatives from the Internet Engineering Task Force, and Internet Software Consortium, interest in the late 90’s from industry was… well, less than enthusiastic.
The OSI’s focus for the past 20 years has been to address open source F.U.D., while promoting best practices in community, collaboration, and co-creation. Now that so many agree “Open Source has Won,” we think we’ve been successful.
I highly suggest you go to their website and check out the information. They’ve got a nice interactive timeline as well as ways that you can participate and help further the goals of the Open Source Initiative in 2018.
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