Tl;dr

If elected to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Board of Directors, I will focus on growing awareness of the organization and supporting the success of the future Executive Director.

What I believe

My name’s Dave Lester (@davelester), and I am running for the OSI Board of Directors because I believe:

• Open source licenses and OSI’s mission are more important than ever.
• OSI’s profile has not grown proportionately to the growth of open source in general. That’s something we can improve!
• The Open Source Definition (OSD) is sound and does not need to change, however, OSI needs a larger megaphone to avoid being overshadowed by proprietary licenses and competing messages. Let’s tell OSI’s story.

My Priorities for the Board

If elected to the board, I will focus on three areas (ordered by priority):

• Organizational health and expanding fundraising. OSI must complete its hiring of an Executive Director, while at the same time ensure there is sufficient budget to support the new Executive Director, staff, and their future activities. I’d like to see an effort to expand individual OSI memberships, as well as grow corporate sponsorships to help support this work.
• Building awareness, engagement, and expanding OSI’s reach. Open source is a more visible topic of interest than ever, however OSI is often absent from that conversation. I’d like to see this change. Let’s meet people where they are, continuing to have a presence at open source conferences and events, and expand into non-OSS developer events including open core conferences to ensure our voice is heard.
• Acting as a clearinghouse for all things open source. I’d like to see the OSI website become more of a destination and resource for prospective members and be the first place that someone is pointed to in order to learn more about open source licensing. A clearer, richer set of content on the OSI website would dovetail my earlier goal of building awareness for OSI in general.

Why Me?

I believe I bring several unique strengths to the board:

• Developer advocacy and a community building spirit. I have a deep background in building technical / open source communities, and believe that one of the largest challenges ahead for OSI will be around grassroots mobilization to grow membership and ensure that new generations of developers understand and embrace OSI’s mission. As a board member I would draw from my experience to build greater OSI awareness and support fundraising.
• A bridge to outside OSI. I’d like to see OSI expand a big-tent coalition of members, including working with organizations who may have ideas and goals around open source that challenge the OSD in order to educate and build awareness of OSI. My recent work as Head of Open Source at an early stage company has given me a unique perspective on the pressures that companies pursuing source available and closed source licenses feel, and I believe OSI needs more board members that are willing to advocate for the organization in non-OSS communities. My hope would be to bring feedback to the board based on those experiences.
• Focused energy and time to devote. I’m running for the Board of Directors because I view this moment as being a critical point for the OSI, and I believe I can have a positive impact on the board. On a personal level, I have the time to perform all duties as a board member and would be committed to being active and assisting in driving awareness.

About Me

Dave Lester is an open source technologist living in San Francisco, currently an Open Source Solutions Architect at U.S. Bank. Previously, he led Open Source Programs at Apple, focused on machine learning and cloud infrastructure, and was an Open Source Advocate at Twitter. 

Dave has a passion for open source community building, having helped release and grow numerous open source projects including FoundationDB, Apache Mesos, and Apache Aurora. He is a member of the Apache Software Foundation, and has been an open source mentor, including within the Apache Incubator and Google Summer of Code programs.

Contact Me

Thank you for your consideration. I’d love to hear from you and field any questions, either in the comments, social media, or email.

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