OpenForum Academy Symposium

Speakers and attendees will be welcomed to the event during this time, during which coffee and light refreshments will be provided.

Opening remarks will be provided by OpenForum Europe (OFE), as well as a keynote from an open source luminary. More details will be announced shortly.

Thematic Block 1:
Funding and Open Source

The predominant FOSS funding model provides five to low six figures to a specific project, often to support short-term staffing to improve a code base or pipeline. Occasionally, funding will be allocated to a community manager for a particular period. Sometimes, these funds will have a medium—to long-term impact on the project, but they often only provide a short-term benefit to the project or its community. This paper points to several openly-published and freely-distributed work to encourage projects to make use of them, in order to create and strengthen community and to encourage funders to consider supporting community development efforts like POSE to think beyond the single project model.

This paper studies the involvement of the Mozilla Corporation in the Rust programming language ecosystem. Mozilla incubated Rust and employed a significant number of the language’s core developers up until summer 2020, when a strategic reorganization led to a significant downsizing of these developers. It exploits this shock to study how centralized sponsorship of an entire ecosystem, and its withdrawal, influences the behavior of different kinds of contributors: Mozilla developers themselves, other highly active developers, casual contributors, and new developers.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

Governmental involvement in funding the development and maintenance of open source software (OSS) has increased significantly in recent years, driven by goals such as enhancing software security, economic growth, and national competitiveness in science and innovation. However, the impact of funding remains poorly understood, and there is a lack of consensus on how to effectively measure impact. This paper addresses this gap by discussing methodological considerations and reflections from our experience of developing methodologies for the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF), and the Community Health Analytics Open Source Software (CHAOSS) project.

The OSS world misses predictable, stable, long-term funding sources. A new original approach to resolving this issue could be adopting the private endowment fund model used by top research universities like Stanford, Oxford or Carnegie Mellon. Endowments typically invest all received donations into a conservative portfolio, spending only a portion of the annual investment returns. This paper explores the potential of applying the endowment model to sustainably fund open source. It examines specifics on how this model, successfully employed not only for universities but also by cultural and religious institutions, can be adapted to systematically support OSS maintenance and complement its existing funding landscape.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented.

Lunch will be provided onsite to the attendees.

Thematic Block 3:
Open Source Economics

This paper seeks to define and operationalize a method of identifying open source software innovation in discrete units, thus offering interdisciplinary scholars and policy stakeholders a new, complementary measure to patents, papers, and standards. Increasingly efforts measure open source software collaboration activity (GitHub 2023) and its impact (Blind et al. 2021). The methodology uses publicly available data from GitHub, leveraging software developers’ publication of packages and others developers’ decisions to adopt the software.

Open source software and digital tools are a collaborative and altruistic effort by a motivated community with an impact driven mindset. However, the economic and political impact is difficult to reach from informal community structures where there is minimal governance structure designed for those types of impacts. This paper presents new findings on these dynamics, using data collected from the European Parliament and European Commission, and other countries such Malaysia, Lithuania, and Nigeria.

Governments are considering data-sharing policies like open data and data portability to promote innovation, productivity, and competition. While economic research on the benefits and trade-offs of these measures is advancing, the politics behind adopting such legislation remains unclear. So, why do firms support or oppose data-sharing mandates? This paper investigates this phenomenon using public consultations on the EU Data Act, examining whether data-sharing preferences stem from certain firms’ characteristics, such as the quantity of data they own or their position on the “data value chain”.

This papers closes the ambiguity gap by operationalizing software supply chains. It describes how open source supply chains can be empirically observed as comprising the people and technology involved in producing open source products — the constructions through which work is coordinated in open source. It aims to help make the ‘bewildering complexity’ of open source supply chains more approachable for researchers through methods to improve empirical precision of open source software supply chains as a construct under investigation.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

This special presentation presents a new research challenge, in order to improve the quality, availability, and accessibility of high-quality open source research globally. More details will be announced shortly.

This session will offer closing remarks for the day from selected speakers. More details will be announced shortly.

More details will be announced shortly.

Speakers and attendees will be welcomed to the event during this time, during which coffee and light refreshments will be provided.

Opening remarks for the day will be provided by OpenForum Europe (OFE), as well as a keynote from an open source luminary. More details will be announced shortly.

Thematic Block 2:
Diversifying Open Source

The myth that individuals with specialised technical expertise ‘coding’ can contribute to open-source projects hinders inclusivity and diversity. This exacerbates the challenge of encouraging broader engagement and recognising how people can contribute. While openness and collaboration are core principles of open source, the OSS ecosystem frequently falls short in welcoming underrepresented groups. This paper investigates ongoing challenges in OSS participation, representation, and access, drawing insights from the 2021 Linux Foundation DEI in Open Source Survey and the 2017 GitHub Open Source Survey. It explores barriers various demographic groups face and identifies strategies for enhancing inclusivity, such as mentorship programs, inclusive naming conventions, and community-building efforts.

Open source software has a notorious diversity problem. Women’s participation in OSS development is significantly lower than that of industry (10% compared to 30% of programmers). Multiple studies have highlighted women’s lower participation levels in OSS and their barriers to entry, and more recent studies have begun to expand to other underrepresented groups, such as Black and Hispanic contributors. To understand the state of the literature on diversity, equity, and inclusion in OSS, this papers conducts a literature review to coalesce findings and recommendations. It takes a broader definition of diversity, analyzing almost 200 papers, of which about 100 discussed diversity in OSS. The paper presents the coding scheme, as well as future directions for researchers and OSS practitioners, communities, and advocates.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

This paper presents multiple field study results on how FOSS local data economies as self-sustaining and more equitable economic, social and environmental models that meet the pace and urgency of accelerating global risks. It discusses how they provide faster, more accurate, verifiable and representative data to enable better public and private sector prioritization, coordination and monitoring across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs largely lack geospatial indicators that capture mobility, safety, proximity, infrastructure and service assessments, which accurately reflect the intersecting risks and opportunities communities experience in real-life.

This paper considers how the binary of North v South has shaped States’ ‘technology transfer’ as it pertains to OSS – and whether this approach is appropriate and effective in democratising access. It does so through a systematic review of extant technology transfer provisions, observing that the divide between North and South in applying ‘technology transfer’ to OSS requires further reflection (and revision) regarding States’ conduct. It also makes the case for how critical it is to move beyond simplistic North v South and State-centric models, especially as OSS is an increasingly widespread transboundary project and it analyses how the language of international law vis-a-vis technology transfer may pay heed to OSS’ distinctive mode of development and operation.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented.

Lunch will be provided onsite to the attendees.

Thematic Block 4:
Open Source for the Public Sector

This study, commissioned by the European Commission, delves into the structural configurations and strategic utilisation of Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs) within the public sector domain, with a specific focus on OSPOs within European Union (EU) member states, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland. The investigation is based on interviews conducted with 18 OSPO representatives across 16 cases. The study classifies OSPOs into six distinct archetypes, providing insights into their organisational structures, responsibilities, and contributions to the adoption of OSS. It also highlights the challenges encountered by OSPOs and provides recommendations for both policymakers and practitioners.

The potential for open source software (OSS) to drive digital transformation in the public sector is increasingly recognized in both academic literature and political endorsements. However, there is a significant gap in systematic studies that identify the precise drivers for developing effective strategies, best-practice benchmarks, and follow-up mechanisms. This study aims to bridge this gap by examining the role of OSS in digitally mature countries. The research presents findings from a qualitative survey conducted across 16 countries, selected for their high performance in digital government and administration based on major international digital maturity indices.

This paper addresses critical questions regarding the existence and deployment of globally reusable digital public goods (DPGs) in governments, their governance structures, and their financial sustainability. By creating an open dataset and report documenting the use of DPGs in public services globally and domestically, the paper provides a robust foundation for evidence-based guidance to improve public service delivery in state and territorial government. The findings emphasize the availability of diverse solutions to meet evolving citizen expectations, and emerging trends amid the varied governance structures of DPGs.

This paper reviews existing literature on digital commons and public digital infrastructure, emphasizing current debates about potential fields of public digital infrastructure. Through five case studies, the paper highlights approaches addressing infrastructure gaps and deepens the understanding of how digital commons can sustain and enhance public digital infrastructure. The case studies demonstrate the nuanced approach to public digital infrastructure adopted by policymakers, leveraging digital commons and public ownership to maximize societal benefits and ensure inclusive, open, and interoperable ecosystems.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

This special presentation presents a new research challenge, in order to improve the quality, availability, and accessibility of high-quality open source research globally. More details will be announced shortly.

This session will offer closing remarks for the day from selected speakers. More details will be announced shortly.

More details will be announced shortly.

Speakers and attendees will be welcomed to the event during this time, during which coffee and light refreshments will be provided.

The day will begin with a keynote from an open source luminary. More details will be announced shortly.

This session will present the outcomes of the paper produced as an outcome of the OSPOs for Good 2024 Symposium, which took place July 9 & 10 in New York City. It will provide new insights from the conference, as well as provide a call-to-action for global cooperation around open source and identify tangible next steps to be taken by both the UN and the global open source community. More details will be announced shortly.

Thematic Block 5:
Open Source and AI

Using the setting of open source software (OSS), this paper assesses the individual level effects that AI has on task allocation. It exploits a natural experiment arising from the deployment of GitHub Copilot, a generative AI code completion tool geared towards software developers. Leveraging millions of work activities over a two year period, the paper uses a program eligibility threshold to investigate the impact of AI technology on maintainer (OSS linchpin contributors) task allocation within a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design. The research estimates point towards a large potential for AI to transform work processes and to ameliorate the linchpin problem in the digital economy.

This paper uses speculative design to envision and debate potential futures, considering both the positive and negative impacts of AI on society and role for (ir)responsible AI and data commons licenses in ensuring ethical and equitable use of open AI models. The paper aims to share out findings and methods to help improve the discourse with deeper understanding and more diverse inclusive perspectives about what AI-enabled futures we should want.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

The world’s first most comprehensive law regulating artificial intelligence, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, has been enacted on 13 June 2024 and entered into force on 1 August 2024. The AI Act aims to provide transparency and ensure safe use of AI systems by introducing obligations and requirements for developers and deployers based on the risk posed by AI systems. Despite the long legislation process that launched in 2020 and multiple negotiations, the final version of the Act includes a number of controversial and arguable provisions that undermine both the concept of open source and the future of open-source AI systems. This paper, mainly focusing on the EU AI Act, further examines the legislative approaches to open-source AI systems in other jurisdictions and analyzes the problem of disclosing information on AI systems from both transparency- and safety-related perspectives.

This project attempts to glean some initial conclusions that can prove useful in defining a data governance agenda for open source AI. Through a mix of desk-based research and semi-structured interviews with AI developers, AI legal researchers and regulators, it unearths new observations and seeks and outline the next steps towards a research and policy agenda for ‘data commons’ as the organizing framework for data governance in the age of AI.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented.

Lunch will be provided onsite to the attendees.

This special panel will dive into the future research of open source, highlighting current challenges and future opportunities around research in the open source community. More details will be announced shortly.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

These breakout rooms will enable co-creation around future opportunities for open source research. More details will be announced shortly.

— Breakout 1: Funding for research/Research agenda for funders
— Breakout 2: Increase publication opportunities
— Breakout 3: More and better data

This session will offer closing remarks for the day from selected speakers. More details will be announced shortly.

Speakers and attendees will be welcomed to the event during this time, during which coffee and light refreshments will be provided.

The day will begin with a keynote from an open source luminary. More details will be announced shortly.

This session will present the outcomes of the paper produced as an outcome of the OSPOs for Good 2024 Symposium, which took place July 9 & 10 in New York City. It will provide new insights from the conference, as well as provide a call-to-action for global cooperation around open source and identify tangible next steps to be taken by both the UN and the global open source community. More details will be announced shortly.

Thematic Block 6:
Open Source Ecosystems

This research addresses the pivotal question: How does the integration of generative AI tools in OSS development impact contributors’ motivation, particularly concerning the evolution of interpersonal communications? Employing a rigorous qualitative methodology, the research conducted in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of OSS contributors. This approach captured rich insights into their experiences, perceptions, and motivational shifts in AI-augmented OSS development environments. The findings will inform strategies to maintain and enhance developer engagement in an AI-enhanced ecosystem, ensuring that technological advancement aligns with the core values and motivational needs of OSS communities.

Using a comparative case study analysis, this paper posits that user contributions to open source AI may characterize a new paradigm of open innovation. It empirically contrasts user contributions on two major platforms – Github (for OSS) and Hugging Face (for OSAI) – using a novel conceptual framework, examining two types of user engagement – replication and modification (forking/finetuning). The paper breaks down AI model development into its constituent components – training datasets, model architecture, hyperparameters, weights, training scripts, and deployment code. It characterizes user contributions across types of user engagement by studying the openness of users’ scope of contribution, access to and use of computational resources, time and skill level required, and the platform’s distribution methods and format.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

This study explores the complex power structures and hegemony within the Free/Lib & Open Source Software (FLOSS) ecosystem. Despite the spirit of open collaboration, the FLOSS community is not immune to the formation of hegemony and control. This study aims to provide a coherent analysis of how hegemony is formed in FLOSS projects, on what grounds and how power is exercised, and how such dynamics affect the development process and community governance The project aims to provide a coherent analysis of how these dynamics influence development processes and community governance.

This paper considers the utility of one such proposed strategy: the integration of bug bounty programs with open source projects. Stakeholders have proposed the expanded use of bounty programs—vulnerability reward programs that compensate participants that identify and disclose qualifying bugs—as one possible way to enhance OSS. This paper examines the risks and opportunities associated with integrating bounty programs with open source projects. It argues that while bounties can enhance mature projects by reducing the costs associated with searching for and fixing previously unreported flaws, significant potential adverse impacts are possible. As such, open source projects should exhibit care when adopting bug bounty programs. The paper also identifies the benefits and harms associated with integrating bounty programs with OSS; and it uncovers the key prerequisites for successful integration.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented.

Lunch will be provided onsite to the attendees.

This special panel will dive into the future research of open source, highlighting current challenges and future opportunities around research in the open source community. More details will be announced shortly.

Coffee break with drinks and light refreshments served to attendees.

These breakout rooms will enable co-creation around future opportunities for open source research. More details will be announced shortly.

— Breakout 1: Funding for research/Research agenda for funders
— Breakout 2: Increase publication opportunities
— Breakout 3: More and better data

This session will offer closing remarks for the day from selected speakers. More details will be announced shortly.