Software as a public good

Open source software has come a long way from its origins as a niche endeavor of technical experts. Recent studies have shown that open source software can be found in 96% of code bases, and its demand-side value to the economy is estimated at $ 8.8 trillion. Its open model of collaboration makes it easy for governments, businesses, nonprofits and individuals to work together for the common good. Yet you don’t have to be an idealist to rely on open source: the ubiquity of the tech speaks for itself.

While many critical open source projects are maintained by developers as part of their jobs, many parts of the open source ecosystem are underfunded, and only get enough attention when a potentially catastrophic vulnerability is discovered every few years. Like with physical infrastructure, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to funding it once a bridge has collapsed. To better understand strengths and weaknesses in the funding landscape, GitHub is conducting research with Linux Foundation and Harvard Business School into how organizations support open source. GitHub would not exist without open source and we are committed to doing our part to address the open source sustainability gap. It’s encouraging to see that more and more public institutions are doing the same.

Open source takes center stage at the UN

This shift in public sector attitudes was visible at the OSPOs for Good summit in July, where hundreds of open source enthusiasts swarmed the United Nations headquarters in New York City to discuss what open source can do for global development, and what the world’s nations can do for open source. Our very own Demetris Cheatham shared how joining open source communities was instrumental to her computer science education and later inspired her work advancing diversity, equity and inclusion at GitHub. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reflected on its work to strengthen open source software security, Germany presented its Sovereign Tech Fund, which invests $20M per year into the maintenance of basic open source technologies such as curl, PHP or Log4J. France showcased its community of open source champions in public administrations, called Les Blue Hats.

The United Nations’ commitment to open source doesn’t end at hosting a conference. Its goal is for governments to adopt the Global Digital Compact at the Summit of the Future later this month. One of the Global Digital Compact’s key commitments is to increase funding for Digital Public Goods (DPGs), that means open source software, open standards, open data, open AI systems, and open content collections that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws and best practices, do no harm, and help attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Public and private sector working together

About 80% of DPGs live on GitHub. To help developers connect with these projects, we have launched the For Good First Issue where developers can easily find and contribute to open source projects that support SDGs. If you want to lend your skills to an open source project focused on a public good, this is a great place to start working together with public sector-led open source projects, without having to be a public policy geek.

We believe that industry and government can work together to find solutions to the sustainability challenge of open source maintenance as well. Through GitHub Sponsors, we provide the infrastructure to make it easier for organizations to invest in the open source projects they depend on. To date, this has resulted in +$40MM in funding. GitHub is a sponsor of the Open Technology Fund’s FOSS Sustainability Fund, which combines public and private sector funding to support the long-term maintenance of open source projects. Through GitHub Accelerator, we provide resources and mentoring to help open source projects become financially sustainable. Through GitHub Fund, we invest in the next generation of open source entrepreneurs,- providing capital, connections, access, and benefits to help open source companies grow. Last but not least, we support open source maintainers with free product offerings, like GitHub Copilot, and community, like Maintainer Community.

We hope that the United Nations’ efforts to convince governments of the value of open source will lead to the creation of many more initiatives like the U.S. Open Technology Fund or the German Sovereign Tech Fund. Advocating for such programs and highlighting their positive impact is a pillar of our developer policy work. Whenever the budget for one such fund gets cut, many new ones have to take its place.

Better yet: by treating open source software as a public good, funding its maintenance should become a central part of industry and government spending.

Written by

Felix Reda

@felixreda

Felix Reda (he/they) is the Director of Developer Policy at GitHub. He has been shaping digital policy for over ten years, including serving as a Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and working with the strategic litigation NGO Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF). His areas of interest encompass copyright reform, freedom of expression, and the sustainability of the open-source ecosystem. Felix is an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and serves on the board of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. He holds an M.A. in Political Science and Communications Science from the University of Mainz, Germany.