PALO ALTO, Calif., October 20th, 2020 -- The Open Source Initiative® (OSI), the international authority in open source licensing, is excited to announce the affiliate membership of the .NET Foundation, the world's biggest repository of .NET projects and resources. Welcoming the .NET Foundation to the OSI Affiliate program further solidifies the .NET community's commitment to open source and highlights the open source movement's continued success across many different platforms.

Executive Director of the .NET Foundation Claire Novotny says, "We're excited to join the OSI and look forward to working together to support open source. The .NET Foundation is very interested in building on our existing commitment to interoperability and developer education with other members of the OSI Affiliate community."

The .NET Foundation was founded in 2014 and is dedicated to growing the open source ecosystem built around the .NET development platform. The Foundation started with twenty-four projects in its care, most donated by Microsoft. These days, you’ll find over one hundred active projects, including the .NET Compiler Platform, C#, ASP.NET, .NET Core, and Xamarin, along with many popular .NET open-source frameworks like xUnit, ImageSharp, Polly, and Reactive Extensions. The .NET Foundation promotes the broad spectrum of software available to .NET developers through NuGet.org, GitHub, and other venues and supports the community through advocacy, education, marketing and administrative support.

Josh Simmons, Board Chair of the Open Source Initiative adds, "I'd personally like to enthusiastically welcome the .NET Foundation to the OSI's community of open source practitioners. Organizations that support developers by fostering growth, learning and shared resources are the future of open source. I think it's safe to say that we're looking forward to learning from each other."

The OSI Affiliate Member Program, available at no-cost, allows non-profit organizations to join and support the OSI's work to promote and protect open source software. Affiliate members participate directly in the direction and development of the OSI through board elections and incubator projects that support software freedom. Membership provides a forum where open source leaders, businesses, and communities engage through member-driven initiatives to increase awareness and adoption of open source software.

The Open Source Initiative is in the middle of growth year which means we're building capacity and hiring staff. We're looking for someone to help us with capacity building, who has experience in both fundraising and relationship management. If you are interested in working with us or you know someone who is, please get in touch!

Sustainability Coordinator

About the Open Source Initiative

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the founding organization of the open source software movement, the steward of the movement's ideals and ethos, and the protector of the community's principles and practices. As a global non-profit, the OSI champions software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement. The OSI's constituents include individual software developers, open source software foundations, and the broader technology industry.

About the Role

The Open Source Initiative is interested in building capacity and growing its community of stakeholders. We are seeking a long-term contractor to facilitate our sustainability and development efforts by joining us for 10 hours/week.

Activities will include:

• Design, develop, and deliver initiatives, promotions and email campaigns that foster participation and support with OSI’s donor community

• Analyze the outcomes of development activities for effectiveness, and suggest areas where increased connection and efficiency can be achieved

• Maintain impeccable records and documentation of fundraising activities and campaigns

• Build authentic relationships that foster shared successes between industry and the OSI

• Identify and connect with potential new organizational partners with shared values, aligned activities, and peer communities

Qualifications

The ideal candidate has:

• Strong writing and communications skills

• Experience crafting online fundraising campaigns

• Comfort contacting individual donors and stakeholders for significant gifts

• Thrives in a culture of participation where collaboration and transparency are the default

• Strongly values the diversity in the open source community that is critical for sustainability and growth

• Demonstrated skill meeting deadlines in a remote environment

   

We’d prefer:

• Deep familiarity with the global open source community

• Experience applying to grants for technically focused non-profits

• Comfort using CiviCRM and XWiki

We believe that the future of open source must include everyone. We welcome all job-seekers regardless of race, color, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, veteran or disability status.

Compensation: $30 per hour/10 hours per week

If you are interested or you know someone who might be interested, please get in touch by emailing the General Manager (gm@opensource.org).

We need open source now, more than ever. Now is the time to foster global connections, knowledge exchange and cross-border collaboration. Only by working together can we make bigger strides in solving some of the world’s most pressing problems. The mission of OSI has always been to advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community. Our goal is to establish State of Source as a platform to bring together open source projects, communities and advocates from around the world.

We want to thank our supporters of this event, without whom this endeavor would have been far more challenging! Our amazing sponsors for the State of the Source Summit include RedHat, Indeed, Eclipse Foundation, Bloomberg, XWiki, Zup, Bitergia, Command Prompt, Salesforce, LexPan Law, Blindside Networks/BigBlueButton, and DigitalOcean.

Please mark your calendars for September 9-11 now and visit www.opensource.org/stateofthesource to register for this exciting event!

For more information, and for the full event schedule, go to https://eventyay.com/e/8fa7fd14/sessions

The Open Source Initiative is bringing in Deb Nicholson as its new Interim General Manager. Nicholson will be supporting the organization through a period of growth and introspection over the upcoming year as stakeholders continue building on the non-profit's past successes. She will be overseeing day-to-day operations, including marketing, staffing and infrastructure, as well as supporting board and volunteer activities. 

OSI's President, Josh Simmons elaborates, "We're thrilled to welcome Deb as an Interim General Manager at OSI. Her credentials are top notch, and she's well respected within the free and open source software communities... I couldn't ask for a better partner as OSI works through its second major transformation! Deb's roots in the software freedom community and at Conservancy bode well for our movements as we strive to present a more unified front to advance our shared goals."

We would also like to take this moment to thank Patrick Masson for seven years of service as OSI's General Manager and Director. He leaves behind a powerful legacy as OSI's first full-time employee. Masson will be continuing his work as an outside consultant to support this transition as well as supporting FLOSS Desktops For Kids. We wish him all the best, both inside and outside, the open source community.

Signed,
The OSI Board of Directors