Geography of Organisations

Analysis of the geographic distribution of organisations behind OSS in sustainability shows an overwhelming majority (64%) is placed in Europe and North America. 28.7% of the projects are considered global, as no geographical affiliation could be identified. Economic complexity – whereby the more diverse knowledge accumulated in a population, the greater the productive capabilities – may partly explain the distribution of open source communities between continents.

Fig. 37 - Distributions of organisations between continents

However, if one compares the ratios with open source developer statistics, clear differences in origin become apparent. Here, baseline data from “The State of the Octoverse” is used, a study that provides the geographic distribution of millions of active GitHub users.

Fig. 38 - Distributions of all GitHub users between continents

At a national level, the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom stand out. Despite having more GitHub users than Europe, Asia accounts for only 1.9% of organisations working in OSS for sustainability. Moreover, the absence of Indian communities is notable, with no large organisation or project identified, despite a high number of open source developers present. Similarly, very few organisations or projects originate from China, despite a high number of open source developers and a high volume of scientific publications. While there are likely open source developers from underrepresented regions associated with both foreign organisations and global projects with no geographical affiliation, this deviation requires further investigation.

Fig. 39 - Global distribution of organisations