One of the Open Source Initiative's (OSI) most important activities is serving as a standards body, maintaining the Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The OSI License Review Process and OSI Approved Licenses and trademark programs create a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations, and governments can organize open source cooperation.

The OSI is also actively involved in open source community-building, education, and advocacy promoting awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software. The OSI engages internationally to: support open source developers, projects, foundations, and users; promote open source technologies, licenses, and models of development with public and private sector executives; champion software freedom in society, and; prevent abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement.