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?

Open-source models	Open-weights models
Full source code ✅	Model weights only
Training data available ✅	Training data hidden ❌
OSI compliant ✅	Marketing term ❌
Examples: Pythia, OLMo	Examples: LLaMA, Grok

Source-available Open source

Code visible ✅	Code visible ✅
Use restrictions ❌	Freedom to use ✅
Commercial limits ❌	Commercial freedom ✅

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

GitHub Secure OSS	$1.25M	Security + Training
Sovereign Tech Agency	€22M	Critical infrastructure
Zerodha FLOSS	$1M	Indian projects
OpenTeams REPOS	Variable	Community-driven projects
Open Collective	$50M+ managed	Fiscal hosting
Python Software Foundation	$3M+ grants	Python ecosystem

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

New rules create open source opportunities

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

Policy & Governance	Community & Product	Legal & Compliance
Public policy manager	Community manager	Privacy engineer
Government affairs	Developer advocate	Data protection officer
Standards coordinator	Technical evangelist	Compliance architect
Policy analyst	Product manager	Legal counsel

The open source career ladder

Content & Education	Technical Leadership	Operations
Technical writer	Open source architect	Program manager
Documentation lead	Developer relations	Project coordinator
Training specialist	Research engineer	Community operations
Content strategist	Staff engineer	Release manager