The OSIs purpose is to be a trusted, legitimate source of truth for what open source is and how to use it.
When they fail at holding meaningful, equitable elections, and when they push through controversial work like OSAID and then gag board members from disagreeing with it publicly, they undermine their own work.
I don't know if the OSI needs to exist right now to legitimize OSS. It doesn't stop snake oil OSS or open washing. Surely the public can just call a spade a spade on their own.
When the OSI fails to include meaningful work like Ethical Source because it doesn't meet their criteria for what OSS is, they also undermine their work by painting themselves into a corner.
OSAID is another good example of that, particularly in the way it was built by leaving people out of the room, and by ignoring the fact that most AI today has dragnetted OSS - along with copyrighted materials - without considering the wishes of authors.
This last election kerfuffle only adds to this.
Richard Littauer