OFA Symposium 2025: Open Technology Impact in Uncertain Times

The proliferation of open large language models (LLMs) is fostering a vibrant ecosystem of research and innovation in artificial intelligence (AI). However, the methods of collaboration used to develop open LLMs both before and after their public release have not yet been comprehensively studied, limiting our understanding of how open LLM projects are initiated, organized, and governed as well as what opportunities there are to foster this ecosystem even further. We address this gap through an exploratory analysis of open collaboration throughout the development and reuse lifecycle of open LLMs, drawing on semi-structured interviews with the developers of 14 open LLMs from grassroots projects, research institutes, startups, and Big Tech companies in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. We make three key contributions to research and practice. First, collaboration in open LLM projects extends far beyond the LLMs themselves, encompassing datasets, benchmarks, open source frameworks, leaderboards, knowledge sharing and discussion forums, and compute partner- ships, among others. Second, open LLM developers have a variety of social, economic, and techno- logical motivations, from democratizing AI access and promoting open science to building regional ecosystems and expanding language representation. Third, the sampled open LLM projects exhibit five distinct organizational models, ranging from single company projects to non-profit-sponsored grassroots projects, which vary in their centralization of control and community engagement strate- gies used throughout the open LLM lifecycle. We conclude with practical recommendations for stakeholders seeking to support the global community building a more open future for AI.I

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented as part of the Open Source and AI track.

Collaboration on public sector Open Source Software (OSS) projects is steadily increasing along with demands for sovereign and interoperable technology stacks. Still, practice has yet to catch up compared to industry and the broader OSS ecosystem, whose ways of working need to be tailored to manage the many challenges falling on the public sector.

To help accelerate the public sector's use and development of OSS, we investigated six successful cases of public sector OSS projects from different countries and levels of government. In this talk, we will provide insights on how development is commonly concentrated and performed with the use of national and local service providers. We will talk about different funding models, either involving one or a few central actors, or a wider set through different setups of crowd-funding. We will further elaborate on sustainability challenges related to the various ways of working, and potential approaches to addressing these proactively.

Attendees will walk away with concrete and live examples to reference, as well as insights on how their organizations can start to engage and collaborate on new and existing public sector OSS projects.

This Q&A panel will allow attendees the chance to engage in conversation with the paper presenters and to dive into some of the key questions behind the research they have presented as part of the Sustainability and Security track.