 | A Brief History of the Open Source Institute |
| The OSI was formed back in 1999 as a group within The Cyberarmy to provide support for the open source development community. |
| It was chaired by my predescessor who goes by the handle of ToTaL, a software developer from the UK who is still present in the community today. |
| Around the time of 2001, the present staff members took ownership of the group to continue its good work, and bring in new focus. Myself, Xenic, shn, w0lf, elybis, gabbana, fightgravity, sefo, pertinax, leon, boefe, aton, and probably a few more I've forgotten went about the task of redesigning the objectives of the group, shifting its focus away from pure software development to be more of a developers community. Providing support services, features, ideas, hosting space, and entertainment, which, at its height in 2002, had more than 7000 members. |
| The original incarnation of this site was hosted at the domain ca-osi.com which was gratiously bought for us by fightgravity, and we used the 'love it or hate it' (and most people hate it) PHPNuke content management system as the basis for the site. We started customising the site more and more including some major additions by elybis and xenic, but we always knew in the back of our minds that we would like our own site architecture from the ground up so we didn't have to worry about numerous security issues; we could also differentiate ourselves from other sites. Around November and December 2003, elybis completed development of a brand new site architecture based on some of the principles of popular content management systems, but it completely bespoke for our needs. |
| We have developed the pillars of OSI: our core objectives. |
| To create a place for our community to exist, irc channels and website |
| To provide articles and discussion topics to inform and educate members and visitors |
| To provide a free hosting facility, the OSIDrive |
| To produce our own software projects |
| To work with other communities to promote the use of open source software |
| To provide a series of programming challenges, 'GEEK', to educate and entertain members |
| In addition to the many support services we provide to software developers, we have embarked on integrating a system of ownership and reward within the site architecture enabling people who contribute to the site to take ownership over its features. We are also providing high-quality services normally charged by most hosts in order to reward those who aid to the growth and furtherment of our cause. |
| First and foremost, we are a group of computer freaks who love to share ideas and pool resources. |
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| The 2005 Update
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| A few shout out's to everyone who made this release of the system possible. Its been an uphill struggle, but we've made it, and all credit to the people listed below. In no particular order: |
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Copyright Open Source Institute, 2006 
