Once upon a time, and it wasn't that long ago, developers didn't think about licenses[1]. They assumed open-source licenses didn't matter. Oh, how wrong they were as one open-source lawsuit after another has shown. Just ask Oracle about its Google lawsuit[2]. But, the organization, which has overseen open-source licensing since the beginning, the Open Source Initiative (OSI)[3], has long been an amateur effort. That's changed. The OSI has finally named its first Executive Director, Stefano Maffulli[4].
Maffulli is a long-time developer community manager. He co-founded and led the Italian chapter of Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)[5] from 2001 to 2007. He also worked for the FreedomBox Foundation[6]. This organization, led by Columbia law professor Eben Moglen, created an inexpensive open-source server for those who wanted to avoid proprietary internet and cloud services[7]. From there, Maffulli moved to OpenStack[8], the open-source Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud, and other open-source projects.
Also: Open source matters, and it's about more than just free software[9]
He'll be taking over from Deb Nicholson, who served as the OSI's interim general manager. This key step in the move of the OSI OSI into a professionally managed organization.
"Bringing Stefano Maffulli on board as OSI's first Executive Director is the culmination of a years-long march toward professionalization so that OSI can be a stronger and more responsive advocate for open source," says Joshua Simmons, the OSI board's chairperson. "We can now deprecate the role of President transitioning to Chair of the Board with confidence about OSI's future."
An enthusiastic open source user, Maffulli contributed documentation patches, translations and advocated for projects as diverse as GNU, QGIS, OpenStreetMap, and WordPress. He knows he'll face new,