Jim Jagielski

Last modified by JimJag on 2017/02/18 16:17

I have been involved in Open Source since long before it was even called that. If you know me, then you know how passionate I am about Open Source, and especially in the community and collaboration aspects of the movement. As much as the license, community and passion are defining factors in Open Source.

Open Source has given me much more than I could ever repay, and serving again on the board of OSI would be just one step in helping to give back to the community.

Some dry facts: I am a co-founder of the Apache Software Foundation, where, over the years, I have served as Secretary, Executive Vice President, President and Chairman. I have served on the board of the ASF since day 1. With all that in mind, I consider myself a developer at heart, and still actively code and hack. In fact, I have been hacking on Apache httpd since back in the days of the old Apache Group. In addition to all my development work on Apache projects, I also have contributed to numerous FOSS projects over the years, most of which are core and foundational to the Net, the Web and the Cloud. Over the years I have also received a few awards in recognition of my contributions; two that I am most proud of are the O'Reilly Open Source Award and the EU Open Innovation Strategy and Policy Group's Luminary Innovation Award. I have also sat on several other FOSS boards and technical advisory groups. I am a Senior Director in Capital One's Tech Fellows program, helping to lead the strategic vision on Open and Inner Source within the company.

My goals as a member of the board would be 2 fold: to increase member activity and involvement in OSI, and to reinforce the importance of compliance with the OSD as a major tentpole of the Open Source community. Regarding item #1: Just as successful Open Source projects are energized by the activity and involvement of the individual contributors, so should OSI members be the catalyst behind OSI. OSI should be focusing much more-so on the needs and requirements of OSI members and, in fact, even those individual Open Source contributors who are not (currently) OSI members. OSI should use its position as an authority voice for Open Source contributors and communities.

I want this point to be clear; unlike many people, my involvement within Open Source has been first and foremost as an individual contributor; I started in open source because I wanted to contribute whatever coding talents I may possess into improving software. Whatever roles I may have had along the way are due to my "foundation" as a developer, as an active, contributing member of communities and projects. As being IN the project, not above it or along-side. This is the true innovation engine of Open Source. We need to do more to encourage and recognize that, especially in the day when "corporate open source", which are simple facades of real open source, becomes more prevalent.

Secondly, I have seen an increasing acceptance of non-OSI approved licenses as "acceptable" licenses for usage in Open Source projects. In these cases, the license has not been approved by OSI (nor the FSF), but is determined by some other entity as "looks like it complies with the OSD" and is thus deemed acceptable. I find this position dangerous and risky and an insult to the Open Source community in general. We have always said that something is not an Open Source license unless it is deemed as such by OSI. If you truly value Open Source, then you should stick with only OSI approved licenses. My goal is to loudly remind entities and orgs of that fact.

I encourage you to consider casting your vote for me as OSI Board Member. My promise and my commitment is, and will always remain, to the Open Source community and to those individuals which comprise it. (Follow me on twitter: @jimjag)

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