OSS + ELC EU 2026

Successful Open Source projects have always had to balance the need to work towards long term sustainability and growth with meeting shorter term issues such as immediate funding and human resourcing needs. Projects would generally work to an annual rhythm to align with budgeting and funding decisions made by corporate supporters, and annual planning cycles were in many places well established. However, this rhythm has been hugely impacted by the new age of AI and the pivots in focus of the commercial tech industry. Long term planning feels impossible, and funding work sustainably feels increasingly out of reach when projects are reliant on companies engaged in an AI arms race. Once-robust human processes now move too slowly to be effective, and the key individuals that still need to be a part of this new world increasingly feel like they are a day late and a dollar short for everything. This talk looks at how the human side of Open Source is being affected by these shifts, and how communities can consider how to respond to these challenges.