The year of change for the Open Source Initiative

The year 2021 marked the beginning of new ways to allow the organization to achieve its mission. New structure, new staff, new ways of being the stewards of the Open Source Definition. Today we published the 2021 end of year report… Its content was ready months ago but we took time to find a designer who would put into a good layout using Open Source tools! The final result is pretty and packs a punch celebrating OSI’s achievements.

In 2021, OSI completed a many years long project and transitioned from having a working board to having a supervisory board and hired our first Executive Director. We also welcomed a Director of Sustainability and established a Communications team with the support of an experienced agency. In addition to our internal changes, we also clarified our mission and defined a vision of a clear future for the organization.

Despite the transformations that were happening within, we never slowed down. Our membership numbers tripled from around 700 to nearly 2100. We held the Practical Open Source Information virtual conference, our first ever online event. This event brought in more than 300 attendees and 30 speakers and was overall a resounding success. We continued to review license requests and  approved four new licenses. Three organizations joined our Affiliate membership program and we also served as a fiscal sponsor for SeaGL and ClearlyDefined. 

We invite you to check out our 2021 Annual Report. In this report you’ll learn more about the past year’s changes, recent accomplishments and activities, financial information and a report on the OSI’s engagement with standards and policies.

We’d like to thank all those who contributed to our accomplishments of 2021. It is thanks to your support, interest, and work that the OSI is able to continue our efforts to support software freedom. We look forward to a new and exciting future of Open Source!