Through LF Research, the Linux Foundation is uniquely positioned to create the definitive repository of insights into open source. By engaging with our community members and leveraging the full resources of our data sources, including a new and improved LFX, we’re not only shining a light on the scope of the projects that comprise much of the open source paradigm but contextualizing their impact. In the process, we’re creating both a knowledge hub and an ecosystem-wide knowledge network. Because, after all, research is a team sport.

Taking inspiration from research on open innovation, LF Research will explore open source amidst the challenges of the current era. These include challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate risk, and accelerating digital transformation — all changing what it means to be a technology company or an organization that deeply relies on innovation. By publishing a new suite of research deliverables that aid in strategy formation and decision-making, LF Research intends to create shared value for all stakeholders in our community and inspire greater levels of participation in it. 

Completed Core Research

The 2021 Linux Foundation Report on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source, produced in partnership with AWS, CHAOSS, Comcast, Fujitsu, GitHub, GitLab, Hitachi, Huawei, Intel, NEC, Panasonic, Red Hat, Renesas, and VMware, seeks to understand the demographics and dynamics concerning overall participation in open source communities and to identify gaps to be addressed, all as a means to advancing inclusive cultures within open source environments. This research aims to drive data-driven decisions on future programming and interventions to benefit the people who develop and ultimately use open source technologies. Enterprise Digital Transformation, Techlash, Political Polarization, Social Media Ecosystem, and Content Moderation are all cited as trends that have exposed and amplified exclusionary narratives and designs, mandating increased awareness, and recalibrating individual and organizational attention. Beyond the survey findings that identify the state of DEI, this research explores a number of DEI initiatives and their efficacy and recommends action items for the entire stakeholder ecosystem to further their efforts and build inclusion by design.

Core Research in Progress

The Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Readiness Survey (estimated release: Q1 2022), produced in partnership with the Open Source Security Foundation, OpenChain, and SPDX, is the Linux Foundation’s first project in a series designed to explore ways to better secure the software supply chains. With a focus on SBOMs, the findings are based on a worldwide survey of IT professionals who understand their organization’s approach to software development, procurement, compliance, or security. An important driver for this survey is the recent U.S. Executive Order on Cybersecurity, which focuses on producing and consuming SBOMs. 

Completed Project-Focused Research

The Fourth Annual Open Source Program Management (OSPO) Survey, produced In collaboration with the TODO Group and The New Stack, examines the prevalence and outcomes of open source programs, including the key benefits and barriers to adoption.The 2021 State of Open Source in Financial Services Report produced in partnership with FINOS, Scott Logic, Wipro, and GitHub, explores the state of open source in the financial services sector. The report identifies current levels of consumption and contribution of open source software and standards in this industry and the governance, cultural, and aspirational issues of open source among banks, asset managers, and hedge funds.The 2021 Data and Storage Trends Survey, produced in collaboration with the SODA Foundation, identifies the current challenges, gaps, and trends for data and storage in the era of cloud-native, edge, AI, and 5G.The 9th Annual Open Source Jobs Report, produced in partnership with edX, provides actionable insights on the state of open source talent that employers can use to inform their hiring, training, and diversity awareness efforts.

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We could not imagine what was on the horizon ahead of us as we saw COVID peek its head in late 2019. Locally and globally, we’ve weathered many challenges, adjusted our sails, and applied new tools and approaches to continue our momentum. As we now approach 2022, our hopes aim even higher as we pursue new horizons and strengthen our established communities. We’re emerging stronger and better equipped to tackle these great challenges and your help has made it all possible. 

Your willingness to engage in our local, virtual, and large-scale in-person events were invaluable. These meetings demonstrated that the bonds within our hosted communities and families of open source foundations remain strong. Thank you for coming back to the events and making them successful.

In 2021, we continued to see organizations embrace open collaboration and open source principles, accelerating new innovations, approaches, and best practices. Not only have we seen compelling new project additions this year, but these projects are bringing new organizations into our community. In 2021, the LF welcomed a new organization nearly every day.

As we look to 2022, we see a diverse and growing pipeline of new projects across open source and standards. We see new demand to guide and develop projects in 5G, supply chain security, open data, and open governance networks. Throughout the continuing challenges of 2021, we remain focused on open collaboration as the means for enabling the technologies and solutions of the future. 

We thank our communities and members for your continued confidence in our ability to navigate a challenging business environment and your lasting and productive partnerships. We wish you prosperity and success in 2022.

Our yearly achievements would not be possible without the efforts of the Linux Foundation’s communities and members. Read our 2021 Annual Report here.

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In 2021‭, ‬we continued to double down on our commitment to enact positive change for underrepresented and marginalized people by introducing new and progressing existing programs for inclusivity‭, ‬racial justice‭, ‬and diversity‭.‬

The LF is Committed to Building Diverse and Inclusive Communities

Unique ideas and contributions — that originate from a diverse community, from all walks of life, cultures, countries, and skin colors — are vital for building sustainable and healthy open source communities. Individuals from diverse backgrounds inject new and innovative ideas to advance an inclusive and welcoming ecosystem for all.

Creating diverse communities requires effort and commitment. The Linux Foundation is addressing the need to build inclusive and welcoming spaces through various initiatives, including some of those expanded upon below.

LF Research Publishes 2021‭ ‬Open Source Diversity‭, ‬Equity‭, ‬and Inclusion Study

The Linux Foundation has put diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the top of its inaugural research agenda, and for a good reason. It is the social imperative of our time. New research identifies the state of DEI in open source communities, the challenges and opportunities within them, and draws conclusions around what initiatives are helpful and where we need to do more collectively. 

Earlier this year, we engaged member organizations from the Linux Foundation Board to provide financial support for survey translation into ten different languages and enable further qualitative research to be conducted for a richer perspective. LF Research is grateful to AWS, CHAOSS, Comcast, Fujitsu, GitHub, GitLab, Hitachi, Huawei, Intel, NEC, Panasonic, Red Hat, Renesas, and VMware for their support and leadership in this important piece of research.

We are also grateful to the members of our community who participated in the DEI survey. In addition, more than two dozen individuals across the open source community participated in interviews with the research team adding further insight to the survey findings.

The research shows that while a majority of respondents feel welcome in open source, many in underrepresented communities do not. We hope that the data and insights that this project provides will be a catalyst for strengthening existing DEI initiatives and creating new ones. 

Download and Read The 2021 Linux Foundation Report on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source

Inclusive Language Efforts Continue

Communities that adopt inclusive language and actions will be able to attract and retain individuals from diverse backgrounds. The Linux kernel community adopted inclusive language in the Linux 5.8 release, showing its commitment to Diversity and Inclusion. 

For other projects, the Inclusive Naming Initiative launched at KubeCon North America to standardize inclusive language across the industry. It released a training course, LFC103: Inclusive Strategies for Open Source Communities, to support this.

Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion Project

We are also focusing on Science and Research to Advance Diversity and Inclusion in Software Engineering. Our new Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion (SDDI) project will draw on science and research to deliver resources and best practices in increasing diversity in software engineering. 

Open Hardware‭ ‬Diversity Alliance‭ ‬

The Open Hardware Diversity Alliance is a RISC-V incubating project with the mission of bringing together the open hardware community to provide programs, networking opportunities, and learning to encourage participation and support to the professional advancement of women and underrepresented individuals in open source hardware.

Diversity, Equity,‭ ‬and Inclusion‭ ‬Micro-Conference

Creating diverse communities requires effort and commitment to creating inclusive and welcoming spaces. Recognizing that communities that adopt inclusive language and actions attract and retain more individuals from diverse backgrounds, the Linux kernel community adopted inclusive language in the Linux 5.8 release. Understanding if this sort of change has been effective is a topic of active research. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Micro-Conference at Linux Plumbers Conference 2021 took the pulse of the Linux kernel community as it turned 30 this year and discussed some next steps. Experts from the DEI research community shared their perspectives and preliminary research with Linux community members.

A multifaceted discussion on various research topics related to diversity was informative. A few takeaways are:

Diversity spans geography, gender, and language.Inclusive language efforts have to take language barriers into account.Implicit and explicit mentoring efforts help attract developers from diverse backgrounds.Mentoring programs with opportunity to work with experts are successful in attracting developers from diverse backgrounds.

The challenges to work on:

How do we retain new developers?How do we evolve new developers into maintaining code?

LFX Mentorships

As we look back at the year, the LFX Mentorship program will wrap 2021 with 23 new Linux kernel developers, 181 new open source developers across all LFX projects, and 5285 received applications. We started the LFX Mentorship program in 2019 with just three new developers, and we’ve come a long way since then. As we look back at the year, the LFX Mentorship program will wrap 2021 with 23 new Linux kernel developers and 181 new open source developers across all LFX projects, with 5285 applications received.

The LF Mentorship program, with the help from the Event teams, reached out to Historically Black Colleges (HBCUs) and colleges with a larger number of Hispanic students before the Summer session and to all 2021 applicants to get feedback on the programs and platform.

We have had limited success from the first reach out in attracting and selecting applicants, and the second one was successful. Here is what people had to say about what attracted them to our program:

The top two responses tied at 83%:

Ability to work 1:1 with experienced open source contributors.Opportunity to experiment and ability to learn to contribute effectively to current open source projects.

The opportunity to facilitate jobs and internships came in second place with 55%, and paid opportunities came in third place at 49%.

The important takeaways are that the program offers the ability to work with experts and the opportunity to experiment. A few mentioned that the program’s emphasis on support for students and developers who are entirely new to open source is why they applied, aligning with the program’s goals and objectives.

Learn more about LFX Mentorships at https://lfx.linuxfoundation.org/tools/mentorship/

Mentorship + Events

The LFX Mentorship program and the LF Events teams collaborated with 22 experts in the open source communities to provide unstructured self-learning resources under the LF Live Mentorship Series umbrella. The series provides expert knowledge and valuable interactive discussion across various topics related to the Linux Kernel and other OS projects, primarily development. We made these 22 webinars available for free, and we will conclude this year with two more. We thank all our mentors for taking the time to share their knowledge and expertise.

Let’s take a look at how these programs enable new developers to find jobs and career opportunities. You can read the stories of Linux Kernel Mentorship program graduates breaking the open source glass ceiling by Nithya Ruff and Jennifer Cloer.

We are also planning to reach out to all our graduates since the inception of this program in 2019. The goal is to see where their open source journeys took them after graduating, and we will share the results.

The LFX Mentorship and LF Events team collaborated on a Mentee Showcase to connect our graduates with prospective employers from our member companies. In this virtual event, mentees will share their accomplishments with others. There are plenty of open source jobs, and employers are looking for talent. Additionally, this event allows us to thank our mentors who share their knowledge to train new talent. Some of our mentors do this in their spare time without expectations. We are hoping to make this an annual event.

A recent Linux kernel community research confirmed the busy maintainer problem we talked about for a couple of years. Next year, this is one area of focus to add mentorship projects and webinars to provide resources to develop maintainer talent within open source communities.

As we talk about the stats and numbers, let’s not lose sight of the big picture. It’s all about:

Making a difference and empowering people by offering both structured and unstructured learning opportunities. We are paying them to learn and making the resources available for free and accessible to all.Developing new talent and making the new talent available to the Linux ecosystem. Helping build communities to continue developing open source code to keep the Linux ecosystem healthy and sustainable.

Addressing Racial Justice Efforts Through Code

In February of 2021, the Linux Foundation announced it would host seven Call for Code for Racial Justice projects, an initiative driven by IBM and Creator David Clark Cause to urge the global developer ecosystem and open source community to contribute to solutions that can help confront racial inequalities. These include two new cloud-based Solution Starter applications:

Fair Change is a platform to help record, catalog, and access evidence of potentially racially charged incidents to help enable transparency, reeducation, and reform as a matter of public interest and safety. TakeTwo aims to help mitigate bias in digital content, whether overt or subtle, focusing on text across news articles, headlines, web pages, blogs, and even code. 

In addition to the two new apps, the Linux Foundation now hosts five evolving open source projects from Call for Code for Racial Justice:

Five Fifths Voter: This web app empowers minorities to exercise their right to vote and helps ensure their voice is heard by determining optimal voting strategies and limiting suppression issues.Legit-Info: Local legislation can significantly impact areas as far as jobs, the environment, and safety. Legit-Info helps individuals understand the legislation that shapes their lives.Incident Accuracy Reporting System: This platform allows witnesses and victims to corroborate evidence or provide additional information from multiple sources against an official police report.Open Sentencing: To help public defenders better serve their clients and make a stronger case, Open Sentencing shows racial bias in data such as demographics.Truth Loop: This app helps communities understand the policies, regulations, and legislation that will most impact them. 

The post Addressing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in 2021 and Beyond appeared first on Linux Foundation.

Eighty-two percent of respondents to global survey feel welcome in the open source community, while barriers to participation include time, personal background, and some exclusionary behaviors 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., December 14, 2021 — The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the release of its latest LF Research study, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source.” 

The study, which includes the results of both qualitative interviews and a worldwide survey with more than 7,000 initial responses from the open source community, was created to increase the industry’s collective understanding of the state of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in open source and to inform important DEI practices. The sponsors of this research include Amazon Web Services (AWS), CHAOSS Community, Comcast, Fujitsu, GitHub, GitLab, Hitachi, Huawei, Intel, NEC, Panasonic, Red Hat, Renesas, and VMware.

“The open source community is growing at an unprecedented pace and it’s imperative that we understand that growth in the context of diversity, equity. and inclusion so that we can collectively implement best practices that result in inclusive communities,” said Hilary Carter, Vice President of Research at the Linux Foundation. “The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source study gives us valuable insights that can lead to a more diverse global open source community.”

Study after study has revealed that diversity among technology builders leads to better, more robust technologies. But the industry continues to struggle with increasing diversity, and the open source software community is no exception. Building and sustaining inclusive communities can attract a more diverse talent pool and prioritizes the next generation of open source technologies. The Linux Foundation’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source study aims to identify the state of DEI in open source communities, the challenges and opportunities within them, and draw conclusions around creating improvements in much-needed areas.

“Understanding data behind Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the open source community allows us to identify areas for focus and improvement. The open source community will greatly benefit from the actions we take to grow engagement and make it a welcoming place for everyone,” said Nithya Ruff, Comcast Fellow, Head of Comcast Cable Open Source Program Office, and Linux Foundation board chair.

Key findings from the study include: 

Eighty-two percent of respondents feel welcome in open source, but different groups had different perspectives overall. The 18 percent of those that do not feel welcome are from disproportionately underrepresented groups: people with disabilities, transgender people, and racial and ethnic minorities in North America. 

Increasing open source diversity reflects growing global adoption, but there is still much room to improve. 

As the global adoption of open source technologies grows rapidly, so, too, is diversity within open source communities. But there remains a lot of room for growth: 82 percent of respondents identify as male, 74 percent identify as heterosexual, and 71 percent are between the ages of 25-54. 

Time is a top determinant for open source participation

Time-related barriers to access and exposure in open source include discretionary and unpaid time, time for onboarding, networking, and professional development, as well as time zones. 

Exclusionary behaviors can have a cascading effect on contributors’ experience and retention.

Exclusionary behavior has cascading effects on feelings of belonging, opportunities to participate, achieve leadership, and retention. While toxic experiences are generally infrequent, rejection of contributions, interpersonal tensions, stereotyping, and aggressive language are far more frequently experienced by certain groups (2-3 times higher frequency than the study average).

People’s backgrounds can impact equitable access to open source participation early in their careers, compounding representation in leadership later on.

Just 16 percent of students’ universities offer open source as part of their curricula. This, along with unreliable connectivity, geographic, economic, and professional disparities narrow an individual’s opportunity to contribute. 

“Understanding the state of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the open source community is critical for business strategy and nurturing an inclusive culture,” said Demetris Cheatham, senior director, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy at GitHub. “This newest data, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative research from the Linux Foundation, helps direct our attention on the things that matter most to our employees and the great community and industry.”

The study also points to societal changes and trends that are impacting DEI in the workplace. Enterprise Digital Transformation, Techlash, Political Polarization, Social Media Ecosystem and Content Moderation are all cited as trends that have exposed and amplified exclusionary narratives and designs, mandating increased awareness, and recalibrating individual and organizational attention. 

To download the complete study, please visit: 

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/addressing-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-in-2021-and-beyond/

For more information on the Linux Foundation’s DEI initiatives, please visit: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/diversity-inclusivity/

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 1,800 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, Hyperledger, RISC-V, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contacts

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503-867-2304

jennifer@storychangesculture.com

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