World of Open Source: Europe Spotlight 2022 report published

World of Open Source: Europe Spotlight 2022 is a new Linux Foundation report that assesses the state of open source across the European continent, including specific challenges to be overcome and opportunities to be exploited. The study was led in partnership by The Linux Foundation and Scott Logic, and supported by a range of partners from across Europe.

The research was conducted by Scott Logic and Linux Foundation Research via a combination of a survey which yielded 1,198 usable responses and interviews with 15 individuals from a range of industries and countries. The lead authors of the resulting report are Scott Logic’s Chief Technology Officer Colin Eberhardt, Chief Strategy Officer Graham Odds, and Delivery Principal Matthew Dunderdale.

Scott Logic has always been committed to open source, demonstrated through the company’s longstanding membership of FINOS and our contributions to the community, including D3FC, OpenFin React Hooks and DataHelix. This same commitment led us to work in close collaboration with Linux Foundation Research on this study.

It has also led Scott Logic to become a member of Linux Foundation Europe. Led by Gabriele Columbro, this new organisation has a mission to accelerate the growth of collaborative efforts targeting open source challenges and opportunities in Europe, while providing an on-ramp for European projects and companies to succeed and collaborate on a global scale. Insights from World of Open Source: Europe Spotlight 2022 will directly shape the work of Linux Foundation Europe in the year ahead.

Key findings of the study are that:

• Open source is a mechanism for collaboratively creating value and innovating across Europe – Europeans have a ‘romantic’ relationship with open source, while those in North America have a more commercial relationship; there are opportunities for unlocking more commercial value without losing the community-minded aspects
• The imbalance between consumption and contribution challenges the sustainability of open source – while respondents indicated clear organisational policies around open source consumption, there was far less clarity around contributing to open source projects
• Clear leadership pays dividends, with micro- and enterprise-scale organisations leading the way – mid-sized organisations tend to lack the clear leadership required to unlock the full value of open source
• The public sector is failing to fully capitalise on open source – while open source consumption is increasingly being formally prescribed by government bodies across Europe, the public sector tends in other ways to be an outlier, with limited innersource activity and a lack of clear contribution policies
• Open source is the apolitical key to fostering digital sovereignty – nations’ ability to act independently in the digital world is high on political agendas across Europe; open source offers a vital means for European nations to plot their own courses in the digital world

Get your copy of the report

You can download your copy of the report on the Linux Foundation website:

World of Open Source: Europe Spotlight 2022

The study was made possible through a pan-European partnership of the following organisations: Codemotion, Esade, FINOS, Friedrich Alexander University, Institut de Govern i Polítiques Públiques (IGOP) de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, OpenForum Europe, Sailboard, TU/Berlin, TU/Eindhoven, TODO Group Europe Chapter, Università di Roma Tre, University of Southampton, LF Public Health, LF Training & Certification and Scott Logic.