Individuals start open source projects because it matters to them. Whether motivated by passion, interest, necessity, curiosity or fame, projects are often started by individuals who want to build better software. Do better work. Have an impact. See their code in the world’s best technology and products.
Because open source today makes up an ever increasing footprint in technology infrastructure and products, we have a responsibility to these individuals and the community and industry at large to support this work and build practices and processes that sustain the world’s greatest shared technologies for the long term.
Part of this work is a shift in thinking, moving away from old world open source questions to new world open source questions. From questions like: Is everything really free and what is an OSS license? To how does my employer integrate OSS into the product development process? Are adequate resources committed to maintaining this project? Open source projects today must meet the level of sophistication companies expect and on which they’re investing their futures.
We can together help ensure this through focusing on new world open source questions and creating a bigger tent — a bigger tent that includes everyone: business managers, users and developers across gender, race and economic class. One that brings open source strategy, tools, training, compliance and more to everyone. We must invest in the open source professional and focus on open source readiness that supports innovative research and development.
This focus is already resulting in big tent outcomes. Outcomes that together we are making possible. Here are just a few.
- Launching the TODO Group, a peer group of open source office program managers to share best practices about how to manage open source in some of the most cutting edge technology environments in the world – Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft and more.
- Issuing 1 million Let’s Encrypt certifications making the Internet safer for all.
- Reducing legal friction through efforts like free compliance training for developers, SPDX, OpenChain and more efforts.
- Creating an open source, shared ledger that can be used across industry.
- Facilitating network operators’ move to open source. China Mobile’s 880 million subscribers will be supported by a next-generation operations support system built with open source software.
- Working with the White House to adopt open source best practices for cybersecurity
- Increasing diversity and opportunity: Women Who Code, Blacks in Tech, Kids on Computers and Goodwill, among others.
You can learn more about how The Linux Foundation is working to support open source for decades to come in Jim Zemlin’s complete keynote from The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit video, below.
And view all 13 keynote videos from Collaboration Summit, held March 29-31 in Lake Tahoe, California.
