Where the UK’s Open communities meet and collaborate

The UK organisation coordinating the UK’s leadership in Open Technology, being the 3 Opens: open source software, open source hardware and open data, across the UK.

OpenUK promotes businesses, projects and people, who use and develop Open, and strives to collaborate across all existing organisations for Open through our 3 Pillars:

Community: creating a clear and loud voice for the Open Communities in the UK;
Legal and Policy: making the UK a great place for Open and business using it; and
Learning: by promoting education and learning in skills in Open Technology.

We are a UK not for profit, industry organisation and advocacy body.

The OpenUK Ambassadors support the work of OpenUK, promote the organisation’s purpose of developing UK Leadership in Open Technology.

The Endless rewards of Open Technology

OpenUK director Robert McQueen is the CEO of the newly-formed Endless OS Foundation, and as they launch their new blog, he’s written here about the...

21st January 2021

Amanda Brock asks “Where’s the UK’s Digital Strategy?” in Computer Weekly

20th January 2021

Become a Supporter of OpenUK

OpenUK is funded by individual Supporters and our Partners’ donations and sponsorships.

Supporters contribute to our funding with a small monthly subscription and in return receive various benefits and the ability to vote in our Board elections.

Learn more and become a supporter

Do you participate in an Open community or business?

We are organised under the 3 Pillars, Community, Legal and Policy and Learning with various committee and work group activities within those.

Participation in any OpenUK committee, activity or event is open to all but subject to our Participants’ Code of Respect and the OpenUK Competition Policy. By participating you agree to comply with these.

Get in touch

Upcoming Events

OpenUK events are open to all but may have limited ticket allocations and preference will be given to our Supporters.

Open Hardware at CERN

February 5 @ 12:00 pm - February 5 @ 1:00 pm

Javier will tell you about our Open Hardware activities at CERN, including a bit of history, some details about White Rabbit (our most important OSHW project), the latest version of the CERN Open Hardware Licence and the importance of FOSS tools to design Open Hardware.

He will also submit some considerations about the special role public institutions have in the development of open source, in the hope they trigger thinking and discussion.

Commercial and Business Models, making them work for open source

February 12 @ 12:00 pm - February 12 @ 1:00 pm

Amanda Brock, CEO at OpenUK, has conducted significant research over a decade in this area, from writing her first book chapter on this to revamping that chapter for the book Free and Open Source Law Policy and Practise, being published in 2021, by Oxford University Press with open access including both ereader and PDF thanks to the sponsorship of the Vietsch Foundation.

The story of the COVID Tracker Ireland App and how open source collaborations can help change the world

February 26 @ 12:00 pm - February 26 @ 1:00 pm

Danese Cooper has spent her life dedicated to promoting open source and InnerSource (the practice of open source methods inside corporations). It is well known that many organisations are inherently resistant to change. Throughout her career, Danese has gained many insights into how to effect change in organisations and ecosystems. In this session, Danese will share many of the lessons she has learned about how to effect long lasting cultural change.

Danese Cooper is the founder and president of InnerSource Commons. She is also vice president of special initiatives at NearForm, an Irish tech firm. Previously, she was head of open source software at PayPal, CTO of the Wikimedia Foundation, chief open source evangelist for Sun, and senior director of open source strategies for Intel. Danese was also the inaugural chairperson of the Node.js Foundation. She concentrates on creating healthy open source communities and has served on the boards of Drupal Association, the Open Source Initiative, the Open Source Hardware Association, and she’s advised Mozilla and the Apache Software Foundation. Danese also runs a successful open source consultancy that counts the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the SETI Institute, Harris, and Numenta as clients. She’s been known to knit through meetings.

OpenUK in the Press

Who’s writing about OpenUK

Amy Howlett

20th January 2021

Amanda Brock asks “Where’s the UK’s Digital Strategy?” in Computer Weekly

Where is the UK’s digital strategy? While the devolved nations press on with their digital plans, the UK government has delayed its digital strategy –...

Amy Howlett

19th January 2021

Gaia-X: A Standardised Approach to Data Sovereignty

Gaia-X is a pan-European project aimed at offering a standardised approach to data sovereignty. Supported by the French and German governments, and with 180 companies...

Amy Howlett

18th January 2021

Amanda Brock, OpenUK CEO, quoted in The Register discussing SSPL

Amanda Brock, CEO and Chief Policy Officer for Open UK, which promotes open source technology, told The Reg that “open source is all sorts of...

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OpenUK Press Releases

Our most recent Press Releases

Open UK

1st January 2021

OpenUK Announces Inaugural New Year’s Honours List for UK Open Technology Industry

100 of the UK’s Open Technology leaders honoured today for their contributions to open source software, open hardware and open data » Read more about: OpenUK...

Open UK

18th November 2020