Open Source Initiative

Open Source Initiative

URL = http://www.opensource.org

Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community, specifically through the OSI Certified Open Source Software certification mark and program.

Open Source projects are fundamentally similar to Free Software in that they both forbid any restriction on the free distribution of the software and on the availability of the source code. The following principles are accepted to define an Open Source project:

- no restriction on the free distribution is allowed (but payment is allowed)

- the source must be freely available to all at no cost

- changes must be accepted and distributed

- the author can request a protected version number

- no discrimination in usage is allowed, for every activity, including commercial usage

- the rights attached to any program are for all the users all of the time

- the license cannot be program specific (to avoid commercial restrictions)

- the license cannot be applied to other code (such as proprietary additions)

- the license must be technologically neutral (not restricted to certain devices or operating systems)

See also at http://www.opensource.org/ ; Background on the Open Source definition, by Bruce Perens, at http://www.perens.com/Articles/OSD.html