The OpenForum Academy Symposium: Advancing Open Source Impact Research

The Need for Comprehensive Open Source Impact Research

The OFA symposium have seeks to bring the open source research community together. Open source software is the backbone of our digital world, driving innovation and enabling countless technologies that power our modern society. In Europe, but also across the globe, it is at the cutting edge of helping businesses and public administrations thrive and unlock economic opportunities in an era largely defined by software.

Despite the success of these previous symposiums, the overarching conclusion is still that there is not enough research on the broader societal and economic significance of open source. We link this area being under-research with how open source still is under-appreciated and overlooked, when compared to other aspects of digital society. This is why we need to build a strong and supportive research community that can bring together this impact research on open source and share it for the benefit of all, a goal which this year’s edition of the symposium will place front and centre.

For us at OFE, as policy analysts and as researchers, we often find that the types of ambitious digital policy efforts that end up getting championed by governments through global policy discussion and international fora – such as Digital Commons, Digital Public Infrastructure, and Digital Public Goods – all rely heavily on open technologies. But, in order for these initiatives to achieve the global, population-scale adoption and impacts they desire, they must be socially, politically, and economically justified by policymakers at both the national and regional levels. In other words, acceptance by experts in line ministries, strategists in national offices, and budget units in Ministries of Finance is crucial for these policies to succeed.

Should the impacts of open source remain misunderstood and its value therefor poorly communicated to policymakers, it will negatively impact the success of these policy initiatives, and potentially cause more harm than  good. Recent regulatory changes within the EU, increased geopolitical instability, and the call for imposition of export controls have highlighted significant vulnerabilities in the open source innovation model, as well as its sensitivity as part of a win-win social contract. As a research community, we must redouble our efforts to make sure that open source software and other open technologies succeed at scale.

What is OFE doing to build a research community?

There seems to be a near-consensus within the open source community on the necessity for more academic research into its social, political, and economic impact. Expanding research in this field will be a critical opportunity to create a stronger body of evidence around open source, in order to help us make more informed policy decisions and address common challenges and misconceptions, both within our communities but also in society and politics at large. Rigorous and comprehensive studies can provide valuable insights, therefore improving critical thinking, guiding evidence-backed decision-making, and fostering a deeper understanding of the critical role of open source for innovation and society.

This year’s OFA Symposium is the first step from us to help strengthen the research community and give it the tools to publish cutting-edge research in the coming years. But, as we have learned from previous years, yet another conference is not enough to bring this about.

We invite all interested organisations to join us to develop a more comprehensive strategy for open source research. This strategy, we believe, needs to address four additional necessary conditions:

1. Improving Dataset Quality and Accessibility
2. Securing Direct Funding for an Ambitious Research Agenda
3. Attracting and Supporting Star Academics
4. Enhancing Publication Opportunities

Behind these four bullet-points lies an ambitious effort in several, coordinated projects. It is a long-term, multi-phase collaborative push for the establishment and maintenance of a larger, more attractive, and well-supported open source research community. Sustained academic engagement is difficult to ensure, but we think this endevour is worth it. We need to generate the necessary research to support the ongoing development and appreciation of open source software as a tool to solve our greatest policy challenges.

Here are some examples of research that we have found very useful in our work at OpenForum Europe:

1. The Value of Open Source Software: Estimates the supply-side value of widely-used open source software (OSS) at $4.15 billion, with the demand-side value significantly larger at $8.8 trillion. Firms would need to spend 3.5 times more on software if OSS did not exist. Authors: M. Hoffmann, F. Nagle, Y. Zhou.
2. From GitHub to GDP: Introduces a framework using data from GitHub’s 7.6 million repositories, estimating a 2019 U.S. OSS investment of $37.8 billion and a net stock worth $74.3 billion. Authors: G. Korkmaz, J. B. Santiago Calderón, B. L. Kramer, L. Guci, C. A. Robbins.
3. Estimating the GDP effect of Open Source  Software and its complementarities with R&D and patents: Shows that without OSS contributions, GDP for the average country would be 2.2% lower in the long run. Countries with higher R&D and patenting intensity face lower losses from unintended spillovers. Authors: K. Blind, T. Schubert.
4. Open Source Software and Global Entrepreneurship: Indicates that OSS contributions lead to higher-quality, mission-oriented, and globally-focused new ventures, complementing a country’s endowments rather than substituting for them. Authors: N. L. Wright, F. Nagle, S. Greenstein
5. Impact of OSS on the EU Economy: Identifies OSS as a public good, demonstrating its paradigm-shifting impact on digital businesses in the EU. Authors: K. Blind, M. Böhm, P. Grzegorzewska, A. Katz, S. Muto, S. Pätsch, T. Schubert
6. Economic Impact of Public Sector OSS Engagement: Shows that France’s policy favouring OSS led to significant increases in OSS usage, IT-related startups, IT employment, and a decrease in software-related patents. Authors: F. Nagle.

Are you convinced? Join the research community!

The OpenForum Academy Symposium is an opportunity to contribute to this conversation. Join the OpenForum Academy and out partners, TU Berlin, Carnegie Mellon University, FGV Direito Rio and IIM Bangalore and our hosts, Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard. By submitting a paper or attending, you can help shape the future of open source research and policy, ensuring that open technologies continue to drive innovation and benefit society. We look forward to welcoming you to this exciting event and working together to advance the understanding and impact of open source software.For more information and to register, please visit OpenForum Academy Symposium.