The open source iceberg

Agriya Khetarpal

licenses, livelihoods, and leadership

Slides to follow along

An iceberg

Above water 🏔️

Code contributions, documentation, visible PRs

Below water 🌊

Maintainer burden, OSPOs, licensing battles, funding mechanisms and charity, community governance, legal frameworks, business sustainability, sponsorships

Open source entry points

• GSoC, Outreachy, C4GT applications ✨
• GitHub green squares 📊
• Hacktoberfest PRs 🎃
• Scientific research 🧪
• Governments and OSPOs 🏛️
• ...and more

Ways to contribute to open source

• Pull requests for features and bug fixes
• Tutorials and educational content
• Issue triage and repository maintenance
• UI/UX design and graphics
• Translation and localisation
• Community outreach and IRC moderation
• Grant writing and funding support
• Financial donations to support the maintainers

• Computer science + applied math background
• Twenty-three years old and graduated in late 2024
• Software engineer at Quansight
• Privileged to contribute to the Scientific Python ecosystem and help maintain the Pyodide ecosystem

• Other work: JupyterLite, autograd, and the PyBaMM ecosystem (Python Battery Mathematical Modelling)

• Interested in
  • Python packaging 📦🐍
  • Scientific computing ➗🧪
  • Compilers and toolchains 🛠️⛓️
  • Documentation and technical writing 📝🌉
  • ...and more 👾

About me 😁

Multiple hats in open source 🎩

🔧 Code contributions via features, bug fixes, triage
💬 Community management – managing our mailing list and moderating discussions on our Discord server
📱 Social media; across Twitter, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Mastodon

🎯Design and architecture discussions, roadmaps, and governance alongside senior maintainers

One person, many roles!

A new entrant to in-browser literate programming

Try it now: https://jupyterlite.github.io/demo

in action

+

open-source vs open source

• Google Style Guide: "open source"
• Red Hat: "open source"
• Microsoft: "open source"

Language evolution reflects ecosystem maturation¹

_{¹ Similar to how "email" replaced "e-mail"}

https://opensource.org/blog/is-open-source-ever-hyphenated

• Founded: 1998
• Role: Definition steward
• 2025: AI Definition

Licenses and open source

March 2024: BSD → Restrictive licenses
Community reaction: Mass exodus, public forks (Valkey)
2025: Returns with AGPLv3 tri-licensing

📈 OpenTF Manifesto: 32,000+ GitHub stars
🚀 OpenTofu traffic 300% increase in
💼 Linux Foundation Governance takeover
✨ New features: State encryption, provider iteration

Lesson: Community can win

The Llama license

"If, on the Llama 3 version release date, the monthly active users of the products or services made available by or for Licensee, or Licensee's affiliates, is greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month, you must request a license from Meta"

Targets: TikTok/Bytedance, Snapchat, Twitter, Google, and other competitors
OSI verdict: NOT open source

Source: Meta Llama 3 Community License Agreement

https://opensource.org/blog/metas-llama-license-is-still-not-open-source

Are open-source language models really open-source?

       Source-available          Open source

Open source funding

The $7.7 billion mismatch

Organizations invest: $7.7B annually

Maintainers paid: 40% get $0

• 60% considered quitting¹
• Aging maintainer population²
• Security vulnerabilities³
• Burnout epidemic⁴

_{¹ Tidelift 2024 | ² GitHub Octoverse | ³ OpenSSF | ⁴ Sonar Study}

Open Source Pledge

Minimum: $2,000 per developer annually

Goal: Sustainable maintainer compensation

and many more!

Global funding initiatives

  Fund                                             Amount                   Focus

India and open source initiatives

🇮🇳 🤝🏻 OSS (or it tries to) 

"Open source first" government mandate

• All procurement considers FOSS alternatives
• #FOSS4GOV Innovation challenge
• CDAC BOSS Linux, localised government OS

https://www.meity.gov.in/static/uploads/2024/02/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf

• 70+ active projects including DigiLocker, UMANG, GeM
• Government-to-community collaboration
• Source code sharing for e-governance

Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2025

• Consent management systems needed
• Breach notification infrastructure required
• Privacy-by-design implementations
• Transparency requirements will favour FOSS

GDP Impact: 0.9% → 4.2% by 2030*

_{*Source: World Economic Forum Digital Infrastructure Report}

Open source program offices

What are OSPOs?

Corporate: Bloomberg (6,500+ developers), Hitachi (60→100 person team)
Academic: Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Syracuse
Government: US CMS, EU initiatives, India's CDAC

Functions: Strategy, compliance, community engagement, AI governance

OSPOs: success stories

Academic: UC Santa Cruz leads UC network

Corporate: 84% now manage AI infrastructure

Government: CMS pioneers federal open source

International: UN OSPOs for Good (700+ attendees)

From compliance to strategic advantage

The open source career ladder

The open source career ladder

Key takeaways

🌊 Open source depths extend far beyond code

⚖️ Licensing shapes ecosystem trust and freedom

🇮🇳 India has its own FOSS policy frameworks

💼 Career opportunities span many disciplines

💰 Funding models are evolving rapidly

Resources to explore

Start today

• OpenForge.gov.in - India's government projects
• OpenSource.org - OSI definition and licenses
• GitHub.com/topics/ospo - OSPO resources
• OpenSourcePledge.com - Funding initiatives
• CURIOSS - Academic OSPO community

The iceberg awaits your exploration! 🏔️

Questions and discussion

"Understanding open source means exploring its depths"

Thank you for your time! Please feel free to say hello!

in/agriyakhetarpal

agriyakhetarpal

agriyakhetarpal

agriyakhetarpal [at] outlook [dot] com

Content licensed under the CC-by-SA Attribution-ShareAlike Version 4.0 International License

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 @agriyakhetarpal@fosstodon.org 

@agriyakhetarpal.bsky.social

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