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Danese Cooper

From Alfawiki
Adapted from the English Wikipedia article Danese Cooper, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 9 August 2025
Danese Cooper
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Occupation(s)Software developer, computer scientist, open source advocate
Years activeActive at least since early 2000s
Known forLeadership roles at Symantec, Apple Inc., Sun Microsystems, Intel; Chief Technical Officer of Wikimedia Foundation; founder of InnerSource Commons Foundation; open source contributions

Danese Cooper is a prominent American software developer, computer scientist, and a dedicated proponent of open source software.

Career

Cooper has held leadership roles at Symantec and Apple Inc.. She served six years as the chief open source advocate at Sun Microsystems before advancing to senior director of open source strategy at Intel. In 2009, she took on the role of "Open Source Diva" at REvolution Computing, now known as Revolution Analytics. Cooper is a board member of the Open Source Hardware Association, acts as a board observer for Mozilla, and participates in the Apache Software Foundation. Her previous board memberships include the Drupal Association and the Open Source Initiative. In October 2018, she became Vice President of Special Initiatives at NearForm, an Irish technology firm.

Open source

Known as the "Open Source Diva," Cooper’s contributions to open source software are widely recognized. She was initially recruited at a sushi restaurant in Cupertino to join Sun Microsystems with the goal of open-sourcing Java. After encountering obstacles that limited progress, she departed after six months but was later rehired as Sun’s corporate open source officer. During her six-year tenure at Sun, she played a crucial role in opening up the company’s source code and supporting initiatives such as OpenOffice.org and Oracle Grid Engine.

In 2009, Cooper joined REvolution Computing, specializing in community engagement for developers new to the R programming language and promoting open source approaches. She has delivered keynote addresses and presentations at notable conferences including OSCON, gov2.0 Expo, and the Southern California Linux Expo.

Her influence on open source development is also reflected in her contribution to Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution published in 2005.

Wikimedia Foundation

In February 2010, Cooper was appointed as the chief technical officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, where she led technical teams and directed the organization’s technology strategy. She worked closely with Wikimedia volunteers to improve software development processes and localization efforts. Cooper credits her extensive experience within the open source community as instrumental in securing this position. She left Wikimedia in July 2011.

InnerSource

Danese Cooper founded and chairs the InnerSource Commons Foundation. In 2018, she co-wrote Adopting InnerSource alongside Klaas-Jan Stol, published by O'Reilly Media, which explores how organizations can apply open source methodologies internally.

daneseWorks

Cooper established her consulting firm, daneseWorks, in June 2011, with inBloom as its inaugural client. She currently provides guidance to Numenta on strategies involving open source and machine learning.

Personal life

After completing her education at Chadwick School, Cooper earned a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her volunteer service with the Peace Corps in Morocco deeply influenced her dedication to using open source software for development projects in underserved regions. Married to a fellow software engineer, she is also known for knitting during meetings.

See also

External links

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