The UK organisation for the business of Open Technology

Making the UK the Home of Open Source 

OpenUK has today shared the headlines of its proposal for open source, mande to UK Research and Innovation. These were commissioned last year by UKRI and have set the basis for making the UK the home of open source AI as well as building our national open source sustainable infrastructure. 

Split into recommendations for the UK as a funder of sustainable innovation and as a user of this, the recommendations have central tenants that include building a National Foundation for the UK’s open source as the home to its open source innovation. This would be the basis for growth in partnership with an incubator /accelerator and bring expertise from the UK’s leading open source community. 

Not only is the UK Europe’s number one in open source software by lines of code and number of contributors but it’s also number one when it comes to open source in AI. This position is further extended by a disproportionate number of open source leaders living and working from the UK. This offers an unprecedented opportunity for the UK to bring that leadership to the fore to build a foundation as the home for open source envisioned in recent weeks by our AI Minister. 

As we move into our second phase of work on this, OpenUK will be consulting industry leaders and experts in the UK and across the globe for views on the foundation in the coming weeks.

Read more about our recommendations and work in this paper