| Open Source Funding Report Shows $7.7 Billion Annual Investment |
| Written by Kay Ewbank | |||
| Friday, 06 December 2024 | |||
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The inaugural 2024 OSS Funding Survey has been published with key findings including a $7.7 billion annual investment in the open source ecosystem. The survey is the result of a partnership between GitHub, the Linux Foundation, and Harvard researchers with the aim of gaining a better understanding how organizations fund, contribute to, and otherwise support open source software. The survey was distributed through the Linux Foundation's Research Newsletter and mailing list, GitHub newsletters, social media posts, the TODO Group, and outreach to open source leaders and attracted responses from 159 organizations.
The headline results start with the estimated figure of approximately $7.7 billion is invested across the entire open source ecosystem annually. This estimate was arrived at by extrapolating from the organizations who responded to the survey which reported that they annually invest $1.7 billion in open source. Investment in open source and distribution of funds to open source organizations takes several forms:
Of the reported investment amount, 86% is in the form of contribution labor by employees and contractors working for the funding organization, with the remaining 14% being direct financial contributions. The other key finding in the report was that while organizations generally feel they know how and where they contribute, they often feel they lack specific clarity of their contributions.
While 65% of organizations said they know how and where they provide contributions, only 38% were able to give specifics such as what percentage of time employees were spending working on OSS, what financial support is given to different OSS targets such as projects, maintainers and foundations; and how many total labor hours do employees spend working on OSS. Another interesting, but understandable, result from the survey was that accurate measuring of contribution is more challenging when operations are decentralized. This was exacerbated by a lack of formal approval channels for contribution - 64% of responding organizations do not have an OSPO (Open Source Program Office) responsible for defining and implementing strategies and policies to guide open source efforts. The full report is available now.
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