Hi! I'm Thierry Carrez. I'm running for election for an affiliate member
seat on OSI board of directors, on behalf of the Open Infrastructure
Foundation (formerly known as the OpenStack Foundation). Continue
reading to learn more about me and why I'm running!

Bio
---

I'm 48, based in France, working from home on open source software in a
small village since 2008. A Mechanical Systems engineer by trade, I'm
currently the VP of Engineering at the Open Infrastructure
Foundation[0], in charge of the health of the open source projects we
support. Prior to that, I've been a contractor helping with OpenStack
Release Management (2010-2013), a Technical Lead for Ubuntu Server at
Canonical (2008-2010), and an IT Manager at various companies before that.

[0] https://openinfra.dev

My relationship with F/OSS
--------------------------

I've been using free and open source software in one form or another,
personally and professionally, since 1995. I started with Red Hat Linux,
then moved to Gentoo Linux in 1998. Noticing a gap in vulnerability
management, I proposed to help and started actively contributing to
Gentoo Linux in 2002, becoming the Security team manager, driving the
reform[1] toward an open governance, and finally getting elected to the
Gentoo Council in 2005.

[1]
https://mgorny.pl/articles/the-story-of-gentoo-management.html#gentoo-council

I got hired by Canonical in 2008 to work from home as a technical lead
on Ubuntu Server. In 2010 I followed a couple of ex-Canonical folks to
work on a nascent open source alternative to the big proprietary clouds,
called OpenStack. This project was formed on strong principles of open
collaboration: open source of course, but also open development
(accessibility to all), open design (design done in the open), and open
community (any contributor can get elected to governing bodies). When
the OpenStack Foundation was formed in 2013, I was part of the initial
staff there, and still am to this day.

Early 2019, the OSI's legitimacy came under attack as pseudo-open
licenses were developed to preserve specific business models. This
prompted the OSI to put out a strong Affirmation of the Open Source
Definition[2], which the OpenStack Foundation joined and signed. To
further support the legitimacy of the OSI[3], the OpenStack Foundation
formally became an Affiliate organization of the OSI in 2019.

[2] https://opensource.org/OSD_Affirmation
[3] https://opensource.org/node/1003

Why I'm running
---------------

Open source in 2021 is at a crossroads. Its benefits for users and the
strength of its collaboration model has made it very popular and
successful against its proprietary alternatives. However, as we were
"winning", the landscape evolved. Software companies trying to
capitalize on the "open source" brand have created development models
and played licensing tricks that make them much closer to proprietary
software than to openly-developed open source software. Worse, they
actively dilute the meaning of "open" and "open source" by trying to
associate their software with it, and attacking the legitimacy of the
Open Source Definition and the OSI as its guardian.

The old binary distinction (proprietary vs. F/OSS) is no longer enough.
Licenses are still very much necessary, but no longer sufficient. We
need a richer taxonomy to describe what's out there in 2021, and inform
potential users of their exact rights and benefits. Beyond the license
the code is released under, *how* the software is produced actually
matters. Open source that is closed to contributions, or under a
copyright license agreement, is very different from openly-developed,
openly-governed open source.

I have been advocating for going beyond licenses for a while[4]. I now
think the OSI is the best place to drive that fight for the future of
open source. If elected, I'll to bring my experience of Open Source
project management and governance, as well as my experience of Open
Source Foundation boards, to the OSI. I intend to drive the discussion
on evolving the OSI scope to go beyond open source licenses and into
taking a more active role at classifying the various types of open
source, highlighting the benefits of each.

[4] https://opensource.org/node/1006

More about me
--------------

* 'Open Source in 2019', an OSI guest post with a call to action to
build the next decade of open source: https://opensource.org/node/1006

* 'Restoring the spirit of Open source', a presentation at State of the
Source 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV1FmWzAOY4

* 'Why open infrastructure matters', a main track presentation at FOSDEM
2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg1cC1o7yIo

* Personal blog: https://ttx.re

* Twitter: @tcarrez