Bruce Perens

I am running for Affiliate director and was nominated by Open Research Institute, a new OSI Affiliate Member.

I am presently the Standards Chair of the Open Source Initiative. In this role I am defending Open Source in a pretty big fight that has developed because Open Source has taken a significant role in the development of 5G mobile telephony standards. Big companies want the standards groups to enforce patent royalties on their contributions to new standards and are promoting that Open Source is compatible with patent royalties. The main threat is that standards organizations, having established a royalty policy applied to Open Source, would start applying royalties to their ICT standards as well, encumbering Open Source everywhere. The big companies fight dirty with fake "research" reports documenting the compatibility of Open Source and patent royalties, and efforts to discredit OSI, its president Simon Phipps, and other Open Source and Free Software organizations and people. OSI's standards committee has financial support from about a dozen corporations (even Microsoft - how things have changed!) which because of our non-profit status may support the effort, but not make decisions. We are increasing OSI's involvement in standards organizations worldwide. I first worked on standards policy as a member of the W3C patent policy board in 2003-2004. We achieved a royalty-free policy that was a critical decision for the entire web.

I am also heavily involved in OSI's license approval committee. This is a difficult task that not many people in the world, even most of the OSI directors, want to be involved in. The license approval committee this year has been faced with pressure from companies to change the paradigm of Open Source to allow restrictions on use, and to allow Open Source licenses to encumber other unrelated programs on the system. I have helped to resist these efforts because they would be a bad deal for the average Open Source user and developer, increasing the legal load on passive users of Open Source (who just use, and don't modify the program - they shouldn't need a lawyer just to use the program) and making some businesses such as SaaS untenable for anyone but the licensor of a program. Open Source guarantees rights. Licenses are how people convey rights to others. Rights are important! Let's preserve them.

However, people and companies can use any license they like, as long as they don't call it Open Source. Thus, I have helped the companies that are looking for a less-than-Open-Source license to standardize on one license and to find a brand that won't confuse anyone that their license is an Open Source one. Giving them a sane escape was better than continuing an unnecessary and damaging conflict.

I am defending the Free Speech rights of Open Source developers. I was sued for three Million dollars for saying that a company violated the GPL. I have defended the case with the help of my friends at EFF and O'Melveny and Meyers. I've obtained this $300,000 bond from the plaintiff after winning the lower-court case (which will be paid to O'Melveny for their work on the lower court case), and have submitted all documents in two appeals which will soon be heard. We'll win, and establish a precedent for others who have been threatened. We should all support anti-SLAPP laws in states that haven't established them.

I am co-founder of OSI. I made the first announcement of Open Source to the world more than 20 years ago, and am the main author of the Open Source Definition.

I do science and space research in Open Source. As CEO of Open Research Institute, I am involved in development of cubesats, small satellites, that are 100% Open Source. I keynoted the Open Source Cubesat Workshop in 2018. I developed a policy and process for Open Source space projects to run international collaboration while avoiding regulation under ITAR and EAR. I co-authored a paper on Open Cars, not Open Source but automobiles with plugs and standards so that self-driving systems and telematics can come from a competitive aftermarket rather than only the manufacturer, and had it accepted by one of the most prestigious legal journals. I evangelized Codec2 and recruited its main developer, and continue to promote it and work with the project today.

I support collegial, fair, and equal treatment of all Open Source participants, regardless of their race, gender, sexual identity, religion. Open Research Institute was founded, in part, to address harassment of a female researcher by the leadership of another non-profit space organization. She became our chief scientist. I put in place a code of conduct derived from one on the Geek Feminism Wiki.

I fight for fairness in other technical circles. I was the founder of No-Code International and helped to achieve, worldwide, the end of a requirement that ham radio operators pass a test on manual reception of Morse code signals. This required a change in an international treaty of the ITU, a UN entity. A decade later, when ARRL, the national representative organization of ham radio operators, turned away from transparency on its board, I promoted change and helped achieve the ouster of four of the problematic directors in a single election. The new directors led the reversal of the bad policies in their first board meeting.

I work to balance business and community interests in the Open Source world. I have my own Open Source companies and work with others, and with corporations that embed Open Source in their products. I am also a strong voice for the individual developer and the user. I am a 20-year veteran in walking the tightrope between community and company interests.

Away from Work

The awesome Valerie Gilbert-Perens and I have been married for 26 years. Valerie is in the Development department of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and away from work supports Berkeley's theater and is a singer and guitarist. Our son Stanley, 18, got his EMT certificate as he graduated high school and is a first-responder in San Francisco. He'll take Paramedic soon, and college later on.

Why the OSI Board Needs Me

• The standards and patents fight is the biggest issue OSI faces this year. I have a long experience with standards organizations and the companies that are working against us this time. The OSI board needs my leadership in this effort.
• Surprisingly, there is little participation by OSI board directors in the license committee, although it is a critical function of OSI, perhaps its most critical. I will help to correct that.
• I an an acknowledged leader and spokesperson in the Open Source world, and have been for more than 20 years. I can get most people to listen, no matter who or where, which is crucial in achieving OSI's goals.
• And I am on the forefront of bringing Open Source into new fields, including space, automotive, software-defined radio, hardware and gate-array designs, and represent those developers as Open Source transitions out of its mostly-ICT history.

Full Disclosure

I have my own consulting business focusing on Open Source compliance and strategy, and am participating in a venture capital company which invests in Open-Source-related firms. Other OSI directors are also consultants and corporate officers or staff in the Open Source industry.

Fun Stuff

I do fun things with ham radio (my callsign is K6BP). I have a travel trailer with my own solar-power system, and enjoy going camping with Valerie. We enjoy non-camping travel too. We like restaurants, shows, long walks, and reading books when we're home. I sing, am an amateur astronomer, brew beer and roast coffee, and bake sourdough pizza.

I'm featured in this new IBM ad with Buzz Aldrin, Arianna Huffington, Janelle Monae, Miaym Bialik, and more. It was shown during the Oscars, so an incredibly large number of people saw me asking for Data Rights to be championed as Human Rights. I did this for fun, as it's the first and probably last time in my life that I have been cast for anything. I got paid SAG scale, which was less than my regular consulting fee, and might make some residuals if they run it a lot.

I had a 19 year career in film, and 12 years at Pixar. You can see my credits on IMDB. I wasn't friends with Lassiter and his crowd. So sad that nasty stuff that I only heard about 18 years after I left made me unable to take pride in Pixar.