We, the undersigned, petition the Open Source Initiative
(OSI) to release the complete, unaltered results of its 2025 Board of
Directors elections. We believe that by removing candidates and votes
after voting concluded, OSI has damaged its credibility.
We call for transparency as a first step toward repairing
OSI’s integrity and reputation.
Background context
OSI relies entirely on community deference and respect
for its authority in promoting Open Source and the
consistent use of the term “Open Source.”
- In 2012, OSI shifted toward operating as a member-driven organization.
- Every year since 2013, OSI has held elections where Individual and Affiliate members
vote on directors to represent them. - Although OSI is not legally bound to accept the results,
the elections have been a key part of community and membership engagement,
and OSI has always worked to follow best practices for public elections. - Until 2025, OSI has published the full results of elections.
2025 election
In 2025, OSI excluded all votes for three candidates before publishing results.
The announcement of the
altered voting results
did not name the removed candidates, but they were Bentley Hensel,
Bradley Kuhn, and Richard Fontana (incidentally, a former OSI director).
Notably, Kuhn and Fontana campaigned on a joint
OSI Reform platform
which included four proposals, the most significant being a call to repeal
the newly-adopted Open Source AI Definition (OSAID).
They also advocated for revising the
OSI Board Member Agreement,
because they interpreted the clause requiring members to “support publicly all Board
decisions” as being overly expansive and stifling. They proposed clarifying or
limiting the clause to achieve a better balance.
Normally, as in prior years, as with other organizations, and as stated during
candidate orientation, signing of the Board Agreement would happen only
with the election winners as part of getting seated as new directors.
Kuhn and Fontana say that they brought up their concerns about the Agreement
during candidate orientation and came away with the understanding that they
would be able to discuss how to resolve the issue later if they won the election.
Then, about one hour after voting ended, OSI emailed a new requirement
to the 11 non-incumbent candidates. They gave a 47-hour deadline for all to
sign the board member agreement or be disqualified.
Hensel missed the deadline simply by not checking his email soon enough.
Having no chance to otherwise resolve or discuss their agreement
concerns, Fontana and Kuhn returned signed board member agreements that included
their proposed changes. OSI then published the announcement which
excluded all votes for the three candidates.
Ramifications
In general, changing election rules mid-process and altering vote counts
undermines the integrity of any election.
Results must be published transparently — regardless of whether a
candidate withdraws, dies, or is disqualified for any reason. Once a
candidate appears on the ballot, the only way to respect voters is to
count and report the votes as cast. Presenting altered voting results
misrepresents and disrespects the electorate.
Regardless of particular concerns about the Board Agreement, for the
current OSI Board to remove critical candidates while hiding
the voting results presents a clear conflict of interest and invites
community speculation about motives and corruption. As
LWN OSI election coverage
noted, “a cynical person might conclude that the last-minute
requirement to sign the agreement was to disqualify one or both because
they would have won otherwise; and that the OSI leadership was unwilling
to have even a minority number of board members who might seek to steer
the ship in a different direction.”
Call for resolution
We are community members who care deeply about OSI’s mission.
We want to see OSI governed with integrity and transparency.
This petition does not endorse particular candidates or policy positions.
We believe that everyone should care about transparency regardless of
whether we are supportive, critical, or neutral on the policy concerns
brought up in the election.
To restore credibility and integrity, we call on OSI to:
- Publish the full, unaltered election results.
- Credibly recommit to working with the community on all steps necessary to repair lost trust.
Sign the Petition
Your signature is welcome. Signing is easy:
- Submit a pull request to the Codeberg repository adding your signature.
- Alternatively, email
sign@osi-petition.orgwith your signature.- Note: Your email address will be included in the git commit unless you specify otherwise.
- Alternatively, submit a pull request to the GitHub mirror adding your signature.
When you sign, please indicate your relationship to OSI (Member,
Former Director, etc.) if you have one.
For OSI affiliates:
- Affiliate Representatives should sign on behalf of their organization.
- Employees/volunteers may also sign separately in their individual capacity.
Signatures
Respectfully,
- David Turner (OSI member & voter in individual board elections)
- Ian Kelling (OSI member & voter in individual board elections)
- Luke W Faraone (OSI Member & Capriciously Denied Nominee for 2025 OSI Elections)
- Corwin Brust (OSI member)
- Eric Schultz (OSI member)
- Bradley M. Kuhn (Candidate for OSI 2025 Board Elections & OSI license-review volunteer since 2010)
- Anush Veeranala
- Richard Littauer (Former OSI employee, former OSI member)
- GNOME Foundation (OSI Affiliate)
- Michael Downey (former OSI member)
- Davis Remmel
- Kevin P. Fleming (OSI member & voter in individual board elections)
- Hana Burtin
- Snowdrift.coop (OSI Affiliate and former OSI fiscally-sponsored incubator project; signing approved by board unanimously)
- Aaron Wolf
- Boud Roukema (cosmologist)
- Justin O’Brien
- Bo Morgan
- Richard Fontana (OSI member, OSI board director 2013-2019, and candidate for 2025 OSI board elections)
- Jérôme Carretero
- Andreas Tille (Debian Project Leader)
- Sandra Snan (artist)
- Alex Hoyau
- Eric Ireland
- Arnold Schrijver (Social coding commons, SocialHub, Humane Tech Community)
- Oliver Geer
- Bob Murphy
- Dan Yeaw
- Matěj Cepl (employee of SUSE Linux Czech, but speaking in my personal person only)
- Jack Grimsdell
- Traci Wetzel
- Greg Farough
- Denbeigh Stevens
- Neal Gompa (OSI member; SFC sustainer; FSF associate member; …)
- Jason Self
- Lars Wirzenius
- Matthias Urlichs
- Ian Jackson (former OSI Board Member, former SPI Board Member, former Debian Project Leader)
- Gergely Nagy
- Sean Whitton (Debian Developer)
- Bryan Lunduke (The Lunduke Journal)
- Andrej Shadura
- Christopher Trumbour
- Aleksandr Smyshliaev
- Aaron Andersen
- Esther Payne
- Jacob Weisz
- Gavin Murambadoro
- Stéphane Graber
- Jonathan Carter (Debian Developer, former Debian Project Leader)
- Stefano Rivera (Debian Developer)
- Kunal Mehta (Debian Developer, former OSI member)
- Danyl Strype
- Davide Repetto
- Christine Hall
- Karl Fogel (former OSI Board Member)
- Matthias Geiger (Debian Developer)
- Michael Jeanson (Debian Developer)
- Mark Galassi (astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory; contributor to FOSS since 1985 – GNU Scientific Library, guile, gnome, dominion, …)
- Petr Sabanov
- Athena L. Martin
- Federico Damián Schonborn
- Erich Schulz
- Margarita Manterola (Debian Developer)
- Kuno Woudt
- Alfred M. Szmidt (GNU maintainer)
- Ilia Anufriev
- Olivier Mehani
- Allison Randal (former OSI President, former OSI Board Member, OSI member, Debian Developer)
- Thorsten Glaser (resigned OSI license-discuss and license-review volunteer)
- Andrej Skenderija
- Mathieu Cayeux
- Christian R. Schulz
- Curtis Nixon
- Christian Lampe
- Marcus Johansson
- Gabriella Bere
- Mateusz Gajewski
- Leon Frommholz (working at T-Systems, signing only on my personal behalf)
- Mykola Hlushchak
- Lutz Willek
- Wiktor Perskawiec (“Basic” OSI Member, FOSS contributor since the age of 13)
- Markus Probst
- Patrick Orave
- Cynthia “KosmX”
- Arthur Araruna
- Samuel Burgos
- Valentino Rebagliati
- Thomas Youssef
- Gyenge Zsombor
- Norman Plum
- Alaric Hyland
- Phani Rithvij
- Trenten Miller
- Saad Abdullah “ingenarel”
- Lambda Gtz [https://github.com/pedernal]
- Zackary Newman
- Eyvind Ravnå
- Loïc Cerf
- Nicolas Schodet
- Sean Wicht
- Reza Fathzadeh
- Sven Neuhaus (ZenDiS tech lead open source products, in private capacity)
- Jurgen Gaeremyn (Digital Freedom Foundation, board member)
- Elizabeth Doughty
- Cristina Rosangel Ibañez
- Andy Prough(Certified Fraud Examiner)
- Radek Goláň
- Adrien ‘neox’ Bourmault
- Bert Van de Poel
- Ignacio (Iñaki) Arenaza
- Nikita Kniazev
- Gianmarco Gargiulo
- Yuri Ferrier
- Péntek Sándor
- Ayberk Ata Han
- Lukáš Jiřiště
- William Regulus
- Dmitry Kucherenko
- Eric M. Klein (https://github.com/zaxusemk)
- Bruno Haible (GNU hacker)
- Joseph Michael
- Bill “homelab-00”
- Ben Cotton (OSI member)
- Edward Dore
- Logan “ArkhamCookie”
- Logan Gillespie
- Arto Olli
