NewsFormer Sun Open Source Chief to Join OSI Board of Directors

Former Sun Open Source Chief to Join OSI Board of Directors

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It seems like yesterday when Simon Phipps, the former Sun open source bigwig exited Oracle, and he’s already been elected director of the Open Source Initiative.

It was actually Monday when Phipps published his farewell blog post announcing his Oracle departure. And it was on Sunday that the OSI board of directors elected him as director.

And so on April 1, Phipps will wrap his hands around the yoke of the OSI, but some can’t help but wonder why.

“One or two friends have asked why on earth anyone would want to commit time to OSI,” Phipps blogged today. “They point out that the OSI has had a much lower profile over the past few years as the more notable founding members have moved on.”

According to Phipps, one of the criticisms of the OSI is that they allowed too many licenses to be approved – “including some of questionable merit.” Thus cheapening the open source “brand.”

However, despite all of the naysayers, Phipps is convinced that the OSI can play an important and relevant role in the open source community.

“OSI needs to move from a ‘supreme court’ model to a member-based model,” he said. “I’d like to see activities promoting software freedom around the world both encouraged and represented by OSI.”

Phipps said that he wants to focus on education, policy development and perhaps organizational support for open source projects.

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