OSI Board Blog

I first met Pierre Fricke in late 1998 or early 1999 when he was working for IBM. He was one of four people charged by IBM to research and evaluate the strategic implications of open source software for IBM's business. Because I was a founder of the world's first open source company, he was keen to understand what I saw back in 1989, what I saw looking to 1999 and beyond, and whether our experience (which earned upwards of $24M of revenue in 1999) could possibly inform the strategy for a company more than 1000x our size.

We've been setting up our calendar for OSCON 2007 Once again the OSI Board will be holding public meetings and also a day-long work session. Michael just blogged the "high points" but this is the whole list. As always, we're hoping to see any and all supporters of Open Source. There are some very interesting issues facing Open Source these days. Come be part of the action and help us work out solutions that will work to keep the Open Source Effect alive.

Getting Schooled In Design

Innovation requires imagination. Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." Making innovative leaps requires design thinking and a culture that looks beyond what exists today.

In the past two years, Nussbaum has written and blogged almost daily about the ways in which D-school (Design school), not B-school (Business school), is reshaping the way companies compete and businesses operate. Consider this observation:

The Foundation for Economic Education publishes a journal called 'The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'. They published this article in January:

Open-Source Software: Who Needs Intellectual Property? by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine

I am proud to be a member of the open source community. I am especially proud when I can use open source to do something really unexpected, like getting my daughter all excited about doing something just a little bit batty, making a promise of success, and then, delivering on that promise, in spades.

For a variety of reasons (mostly having to do with the vagaries of Post Office administration in Noe Valley), OSI has a new official mailing address as of today...

If you want to send us donation checks (or snail mail of any kind)...henceforth please send to:

Danese Cooper, Treasurer
Open Source Initiative
P.O. Box 410990, #256
San Francisco, California 94114-0990

Sincere apologies to anyone whose mail may have been caught in the crossfire of our mail box battle. Please resend.

I started to respond to David Richards (the CEO of CentricCRM) comment to the thread I started last week, but that thread has generated a number of sub-threads which I think are better addressed separately. (You can be the judge as to whether this thread separation is a good idea or not.) Thus, I gave a partial response there, and here's really my full response.

David,

First, let me thank you for stepping forward into this discussion.

Dana Blankenhorn's story How far can open source CRM get? has finally pushed me to respond to the many people who have asked "When is the OSI going to stand up to companies who are flagrantly abusing the term 'open source'?" The answer is: starting today.

Stanford Professor David Kelley is one of those rare individuals who has successfully added a new way of thinking to Western Thought: Design Thinking. Indeed, the National Academy of Engineering recognized him for nothing less than "affecting the practice of design." I have come to have great respect for the process of design thinking that David Kelley formalized and now teaches, and now it is time to show that respect by actually practicing what is preached.