2025-03-10 –, Auditorium
Introducing a practical toolkit for measuring the impacts of public funding for FOSS development, based on firsthand insights from EU and German funding initiatives and methodologies developed by the CHAOSS project. Learn how to assess social, economic, and technological outcomes for evidence-based FOSS funding strategies in the public interest.
This talk presents practical approaches for measuring the impact of public funding on FOSS development, based on experiences with the Next Generation Internet initiative by the European Commission, Sovereign Tech Agency by the German Government, and community health measurement by the CHAOSS project at the Linux Foundation. We will explore how to assess multiplier effects, evaluate return on public investment, and apply community health metrics to demonstrate the value of public funding for FOSS development and maintenance. Furthermore, we will discuss quantitative and qualitative methods for measuring social, economic, and technological outcomes of different public funding initiatives (e.g. funding for maintenance, security, and innovation). We will also address common challenges in impact measurement, from data collection to attribution of outcomes, and share practical solutions from our first-hand experience. The session will benefit both public funders seeking to optimise their FOSS funding strategies and OSS projects looking to demonstrate the impact of public funding.
Dr. Dawn Foster works as the Director of Data Science for CHAOSS where she is also a board member / maintainer. She is co-chair of CNCF TAG Contributor Strategy and an OpenUK board member. She has 20+ years of experience at companies like VMware and Intel with expertise in community, strategy, governance, metrics, and more. She has spoken at over 100 industry events and has a BS in computer science, an MBA, and a PhD. In her spare time she enjoys reading science fiction, running, and traveling.
Mirko Boehm is a free and open source software contributor, community builder, licensing expert and researcher, with contributions to major open source projects like the KDE Desktop, the Open Invention Network, the Open Source Initiative and others. He has a PhD in innovation economics and is a visiting lecturer and researcher on free and open source software at the Technical University of Berlin. Mirko has a wide range of experience as an entrepreneur, corporate manager, software developer and German Air Force officer. He joined the Linux Foundation in June 2023 as senior director for community development for Linux Foundation Europe, where he focuses on driving engagement and collaboration between all European open source stakeholders. Mirko speaks English and German and lives in the Berlin area.
Dr Cailean Osborne is a senior researcher at the Linux Foundation, where he leads research projects on diverse open source trends and policy topics, from emerging funding models to open source AI. Cailean has a PhD in Social Data Science from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, and in 2023-2024 he was a visiting researcher at the Open Source Software Data Analytics Lab at Peking University in Beijing, China. Previously, Cailean worked in AI policy at the UK Government and was a UK government delegate at the OECD’s Global Partnership on AI and the Council of Europe’s Committee on AI. In his freetime, he is a contributor to the scikit-learn and CHAOSS communities.
Paul works as Policy and Research Manager at the Sovereign Tech Agency. He leads quantitative and qualitative research, manages external research collaborations, and advocates for open digital infrastructure policies.