The technical strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation between 2010 and 2011 was led by Danese Cooper, an engineer and prominent advocate for open source software. Born in 1959, she built a career managing technical teams and driving corporate open source transitions across multiple major technology companies in the United States.
Early Education and Peace Corps Service
Cooper attended the Chadwick School from 1970 until 1976. She subsequently enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she completed her studies in 1981. Following her graduation, she served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps, stationed in Morocco. This experience informed her later commitment to using open source software as a tool for global development and education.
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Her career includes management roles at Symantec and Apple Inc. During her six-year tenure at Sun Microsystems, she worked as a corporate open source officer, facilitating the release of source code for the Java platform, OpenOffice.org, and Oracle Grid Engine. She later served as a senior director for open source strategies at Intel and held positions at PayPal. In 2018, she joined the Irish technology firm NearForm as VP of Special Initiatives.
Consultancy and Community Leadership
Known in the industry by the title Open Source Diva, Cooper has held various advisory and board positions, including roles at the Open Source Hardware Association, the Apache Software Foundation, and the Drupal Association. In 2011, she established her own consultancy, daneseWorks, with inBloom as its inaugural client. She also provides strategic guidance on open source and machine learning to Numenta.
InnerSource and Publications
Cooper is the founder and chair of the InnerSource Commons Foundation, an organization focused on internal open source development methodologies. She co-authored the book Adopting InnerSource with Klaas-Jan Stol, published by O'Reilly in 2018. Her earlier written contributions include the 2005 publication Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution.
Fast facts
- Born: 1959
- Education: Chadwick School, University of California, Los Angeles
- Key Employers: Sun Microsystems, Intel, PayPal, Wikimedia Foundation
- Current Roles: VP of Special Initiatives at NearForm, Chair of InnerSource Commons Foundation
- Citizenship: United States
- Religious Affiliation: Zoroastrianism
Questions readers ask
What is InnerSource?
InnerSource is a development methodology that applies open source principles to the internal software projects of an organization.
Did Danese Cooper work for the Wikimedia Foundation?
Yes, she served as the chief technical officer for the Wikimedia Foundation from February 2010 to July 2011.
Achievements
- Held posts at Sun Microsystems and PayPal
