Open Source Funding: $1.3M Grants for Equity

The Critical Role of Open-Source Software and New Funding Initiatives

Open-source software forms the foundation of a vast majority of online services and applications. Despite its pervasive influence, the scrutiny and support it receives are often disproportionate to its importance. Recognizing this gap, $1.3 million in grants has been allocated to 13 distinct projects.

Investigating Open-Source Sustainability and Equity

These research initiatives aim to comprehensively examine the utilization, maintenance, and overall impact of open-source digital infrastructure. A key focus will be on understanding how municipalities develop and implement government software solutions, and identifying successful approaches and frameworks.

Examining Collaboration and Dependencies

The projects will also investigate the interactions between private companies contributing to major open-source endeavors. How do these entities communicate priorities and manage shared dependencies? Improvements to these processes, along with associated costs and benefits, will be explored.

Addressing a Funding Gap in Open-Source Research

Such in-depth studies are rarely undertaken spontaneously by individual organizations or governments, and the financial commitment is substantial. However, a panel of experts deemed these research areas promising, selecting them from a pool of approximately 250 applications.

The grant program is a collaborative effort, funded by the Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Omidyar Network, and the Mozilla Open Source Support Program, in partnership with the Open Collective Foundation.

A Focus on the Public Interest

Michael Brennan, leading the grant program at the Ford Foundation, emphasized the lack of funding dedicated to understanding the needs and potential of free and open-source infrastructure. He stated that the public interest aspects of open source have historically been overlooked.

Echoing the foundation’s president, Darren Walker, Brennan highlighted the connection between a just society and a just internet. The core question driving the initiative is how to create and sustain an equitable internet accessible to all. Currently, questions significantly outweigh available answers, and research funding in this area is limited.

The Importance of Foundational Research

Even defining the relevant questions is a crucial part of the research process. Initial investigations in a field can appear broad or inconclusive, as they focus on establishing the scope and direction of future work.

Diversity and Implementation in Project Selection

The final selection of projects prioritized diversity of approaches and ideas, encompassing different facets of the research area and reflecting the global nature of open-source development. This year, both research and implementation proposals were accepted, ensuring that research informs the creation of equitable and sustainable infrastructure.

The Funded Research Projects

Detailed research abstracts are available online, but here’s a summary of each project, including the principal investigator:

• How are COVID data infrastructures created and transformed by builders and maintainers from the open source community? – Megan Finn (University of Washington, University of Texas, Northeastern University)
• How is digital infrastructure a critical response to fight climate change? – Narrira Lemos de Souza
• How do perceptions of unfairness when contributing to an open source project affect the sustainability of critical open source digital infrastructure projects? – Atul Pokharel (NYU)
• Supporting projects to implement research-informed best practices at the time of need on governance, sustainability, and inclusion. – Danielle Robinson (Code for Science & Society)
• Assessing Partnerships for Municipal Digital Infrastructure. – Anthony Townsend (Cornell Tech)
• Implement recommendations for funders of open source infrastructure with guides, programming, and models. – Eileen Wagner, Molly Wilson, Julia Kloiber, Elisa Lindinger, and Georgia Bullen (Simply Secure & Superrr)
• How we can build a “Creative Commons” for API terms of Service, as a contract to automatically read, control and enforce APIs Terms of service between infrastructure and applications? – Mehdi Medjaoui (APIdays, LesMainteneurs, Inno3)
• Indian case study of governance, implementation, and private sector role of open source infrastructure projects. – ​Digital Asia Hub
• Will cross-company visibility into shared free and open source dependencies lead to cross-company collaboration and efforts to sustain shared dependencies? – ​Duane O’Brien
• How do open source tools contribute towards creating a multilingual internet? – Anushah Hossain (UC Berkeley)
• How digital infrastructure projects could embrace cooperatives as a sustainable model for working. – ​Jorge Benet (Cooperativa Tierra Común)
• How do technical decision-makers assess the security ramifications of open source software components before adopting them in their projects and where can systemic interventions to the FOSS ecosystem be targeted to collectively improve its security? – Divyank Katira (Centre for Internet & Society in Bangalore)
• How can African participation in the development, maintenance, and application of the global open source digital infrastructure be enhanced? – Alex Comninos (Research ICT Africa (RIA) and the University of Cape Town)

Project Coordination and Future Dissemination

Grant recipients will receive funding shortly, and a future event will be organized for them to present their findings. The funders will not retain or publish the research directly, but will provide coordination and support as needed.

The $1.3 million investment, while seemingly modest to some, can be transformative in an academic context. It is hoped that these initial investments will foster a more supportive environment for the broader philanthropic efforts of the Ford Foundation and other organizations.

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