Open source software is essential to the global economy, public services, and international organizations, yet many critical projects remain underfunded, highlighting the need for sustainable support.
The United Nations and other public institutions are increasingly recognizing the importance of open source, with initiatives like the Global Digital Compact and various national funds dedicated to supporting open source projects.
GitHub is actively involved in bridging the sustainability gap through initiatives like GitHub Sponsors, the FOSS Sustainability Fund, and resources for open source maintainers, emphasizing the need for collaborative investment from both public and private sectors.
Public good does not mean invitation into license violation, such as training AI models without consent.
I’m ok with not considering it “public good” when something has a license that sets conditions and it’s under Copyright of a particular private person/entity. But if you do need to ask consent to a private party for the use of something in a derivative work of certain conditions, then I don’t think it makes sense to call it a public good.
The “asking for consent” is just a paraphrase and not meant literally. AI tools will be trained by violating the license of GPL licensed code in example. And that I was referring to as “without consent”.
Money pwease!