The UK played host this month to the State of Open Con 2025 event, held across the 4th and 5th of February in a modest but slick venue located within the surrounds of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London. Driven by OpenUK, an organisation dedicated to promoting the positivities possible and potential of open source technology deployments across Europe and the rest of the world, the mantra for this gathering was defined by open software, open hardware, open standards, open AI and open community focal points spanning legal and policy as well as learning.
Featuring none other than tour de force and grande dame of the European open source circuit Amanda Brock in her role as CEO at OpenUK, the event also featured luminaries including Lord Clement-Jones, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on science, innovation and technology and member of the House of Lords.
Openness matters, now
Brock has lauded the luminaries and coding practitioners who have gathered for events like this and said that ‘openness’ – as a discipline in and of itself – is of crucial importance right now as we examine which technology platforms and tools we will use to build the next generation of AI with.
“Without a full understanding of how technology is built and value generated for individuals, communities and companies, it will be impossible for governments to support the innovators and businesses developing these products and services. At the same time, the global AI sector is being defined by geo-political and technological change. The conversations here in London will shape the market of the future and [help] set the scene for the discussion around AI openness going forward,” said Brock.
Brock has strong (and, arguably, usually compelling) opinions on most matters and used this event to underline her view on the need to support contributions from every stakeholder. Her comments were made in response to the Linux Foundation finally publishing its report on sanctions and developer contributions here and the discussion was tabled as part of a panel session featuring Chainguard’s Dan Lorenc and Percona CEO and founder Peter Zaitsev.
Open means everyone
“Open source is not for ‘the vast majority,’ it is for everyone,” said Brock, drawing nods of agreement from both Lorenc and Zaitsev. “Enabling anyone to use code for any purpose and not discriminating sits at the heart of the open source definition and the belief system and culture of open source. Whilst the definition itself does not require projects to accept contributions in a non-discriminatory way, it notes at definition point #5, that ‘the license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons’. So by implication then, we can hope that we do not discriminate against contributions other than as a consequence of bad behaviour. If we allow the scale of success and adoption of open source to shift its ethos, it will simply be the beginning of the end. That’s fine if open source doesn’t have a role to play in the future but if you believe it does, then it ain’t cool.”
The speakers agreed that open source is at an inflexion point and, at times right now, the development challenges can be tough. As Brock herself proposed, open source should never be viewed as a business model as such i.e. it’s important that we remember (in these times of increasing pressure on licenses especially) that open source is and always will be a software application development methodology.
“We have realise that the first generation of open source business models is now coming under strain,” suggested Luis Villa, co-founder an GC at Tidelift and VP at Sonar.
Echoing his point, Zaitsev proposed, “Today we know that Venture Capitalists (VCs) tend to get you [open source companies] in the treadmill and then implement a ‘grow fast or die’ mentality, so companies trying to maintain their open purity have a hard task in terms of balancing the pressure of monetisation that naturally exists today,”
Adamant and forthright in her view, Brock says that now is the time to stand up and be counted. If we fail – she says – then someday people will reminisce on open source as something sadly short-lived. In her view, that is a responsibility all of us in the technology trade bear.
Also speaking on the need for AI openness at this event was Dr Laura Gilbert, head of the AI for government programme at the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford, UK… and also Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the House of Commons science, innovation and technology select committee
Futurescape for open source
Speaking on the future of open source at State of Open 2025 was Emily Middleton, director general for digital centre design at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT); Lord Nat Wei, member of the Science and Technology Select Committee in the House of Lords; and Tomas Lamanauskas, deputy secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Among the private sector firms represented at this show was Chainguard. Speaking to the realities of deploying open technology across enterprise technology stacks that now feature open source technologies with various, development methodologies and environment deployment scenarios, Dan Lorenc, CEO and co-founder of Chainguard had some realistic advice to share on securing the software application development cycle.
“Supply chain security is no longer an emerging issue that just a few experts care about. It’s the foundation of modern software security. At State of Open Con, we discussed how to address the reality that open source is everywhere, but trust isn’t guaranteed. The challenge now lies in making security seamless and scalable without stifling innovation,” advised Lorenc. “That means also being cognisant of geopolitical tensions – I’ve been vocal about the need for the removal of contributors and maintainers in Russia – and how regulations in the US, EU and UK could impact open source and the role businesses will have to play it in all.”
How open is open?
We mentioned the open spectrum above in relation to open technology now straddling open software, hardware, data and AI. Further to these core pillars, the assembled group at this event also focused on open hardware from the perspective of licensing, datacentre deployment and efficiency, open silicon, radio technology and the RISC-V specification. As well as an open finance discussion covering the role of open source in finance and banking, the open mobile and communications track covered OpenRAN and 5G, telecommunications infrastructure, open standards, real-time communications and open media.
Always vocal on the need to create robust open technology systems of innovation was Linda Griffin, vice president for global policy at Mozilla. The event itself was supported by Canonical, Mozilla and the Yocto Project, part of the Linux Foundation.
“Open ecosystems and the shared research, talent and community they promote, are proven to be the most successful means of impacting digital economic growth – but they do not happen by accident,” said Griffin. Governments can play a key role in architecting this support and associated growth with deliberate pro open source innovation strategies. This is a critical time for both openness and AI; it is clear we cannot treat open ecosystems as some sort of backstop safety blanket that will always be there.”
AWS on OpenSearch
Further speakers confirmed for the conference plenary panels and keynotes included Anandhi Bumstead, director of Engineering at OpenSearch, AWS, who attended the show to talk about a variety of technologies. A key focus area for her is OpenSearch, a distributed, community-driven, fully open source search and analytics suite. OpenSearch is committed to raising standards for the broader community as highlighted on the AWS Open Source Security webpage and with transparency for open releases and most recently open governance.
“The OpenSearch Project aims to create a successful, open source search and analytics software suite that is rich in features, widely used, and supported by a vibrant community. Since the beginning of OpenSearch, the project strives to find the best ways to work together and give all stakeholders a voice in decision making”, Bumstead. “Governance is a key aspect of the OpenSearch Project, as we seek to grow our open source community beyond AWS members and leverage the power of open source innovation for the OpenSearch Project.”
Also always vocal on open source is Peter Zaitsev, founder at Percona, Coroot and FerretDB. Providing us with his views on where the open landscape is going in 2025 (and beyond), Zaitsev has said that open source is about freedom and giving everyone access to the world’s best ideas and discoveries. He says that he believes the principle of sharing ideas and information underpins the modern scientific and innovation process. In his view, without the ability to share and improve upon the work of others, the wheel would have to be continually reinvented.
As Zaitsev was quoted saying here, “A lot of people get engaged in open source… and without any pay. They are doing that [it] because of the passion… and they become good because the core motivation was the love, not money. That changes a lot.”
Bottom line – community & maintainers
The conclusion that anyone takes away from an event like this (especially if we really are trying to assess the state of open, which was the name of the event in the first place after all) is that it all comes down to companies, maintainers and community. Let’s remind ourselves that over the 150+ Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) projects that exist at the time of writing, each has its own maintainer (or maintainers plural) to oversee its wellbeing and efficacy.
