Open Source Software Is Infrastructure—Now Washington Is Starting to Treat It That Way
Open source software underpins virtually the entire digital economy. Estimates place open source components in roughly 97% of codebases, making it foundational infrastructure for both private industry and government alike. Yet for all that reliance, the public sector has largely remained a consumer rather than a steward of the OSS ecosystem. Security incidents like Log4j have shifted some focus toward protecting that supply chain, but a comprehensive federal policy approach has yet to materialize.
A June 2022 roundtable in Washington, D.C., organized around the question of what such a policy agenda should look like, brought together policymakers, practitioners, and academics to chart a path forward. The event centered on a proposal from Harvard Business School professor Frank Nagle, whose Brookings policy brief outlines concrete steps for government involvement—from simply understanding how OSS functions to establishing a dedicated federal Open Source Program Office (OSPO) that would coordinate efforts across agencies. That kind of coordination would naturally extend to the thousands of government organizations already using GitHub for official work.
The conversation also touched on the political realities of federal open source publishing. Renewed commitment to programs like 18F and the Federal Source Code Policy was discussed as a mechanism for strengthening U.S. digital infrastructure, though speakers acknowledged the organizational hurdles that come with sustained cross-administration support.
Lessons From Abroad
OSS is inherently global, and any U.S. policy must account for that interconnectedness while building domestic capacity. Speakers drew directly on European experience. OpenForum Europe shared survey data on EU open source policy objectives and described how governmental OSPOs can learn from private sector implementations. Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund was cited as a model for using strategic funding and legal tools to support healthy, secure OSS—a reminder that policy is not just about adoption but about actively sustaining the ecosystem.
Funding durability was a recurring theme. When support for the Open Technology Fund was at risk in 2020, GitHub joined a public campaign to renew it, underscoring that financial commitment must be consistent rather than event-driven. On the international development side, the Digital Impact Alliance presented its Digital Public Goods Charter, a multistakeholder framework aimed at helping developing countries build safe and trusted digital public infrastructure at scale. GitHub has also funded research to standardize platform usage metrics by country for international development and policy analysis, alongside efforts to quantify the economic value of open source itself.
From Roundtable to Roadmap
Breakout sessions moved from broad principles to implementation details. Participants wrestled with where global cooperation on OSS policy should be brokered, and how to design federal open source programs resilient enough to survive changes in administration. The discussions brought together startup founders and career policymakers, mixing perspectives that rarely share a room.
The roundtable reflects a growing willingness to treat open source not as a niche technical concern but as a matter of public policy. GitHub has pushed this conversation forward through engagements with Congress, the U.S. Copyright Office, and international forums including RightsCon and the Internet Governance Forum. The next step is continuing the dialogue—and turning these initial discussions into durable institutional structures.
