A free, trustworthy, inclusive and respectful internet is one of the main visions of the founders of the internet, users and the authorities (e.g. https://www.ngi.eu/about/). Research estimates that approximately 96% of all software nowadays is open source or has open source at its root. Initiated as a response to proprietary code, open source is usually defined as source code made available to the general public for modification and redistribution, where human programmers build upon the work of others, adapting excerpts of the code, often in a collaborative process. As a decentralized software development model, with its main principle peer production, open source grew out of the F(L)OSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) movement, where free refers to ‘freedom’ and not price, with source code openly shared without restrictions. However, there are also those who promote F(L)OSS and state that open source is the resulting business model built upon it. Yet why is it necessary to understand what open source is, its histories and how public funding promotes sustainability?

The evolving genre of FOSS/open source has been offered as a solution to the problems of (corporate) proprietary code; simultaneously it opens the door to software developers worldwide, who build new infrastructures and technical solutions based on shared resources and open code. The EU’s NGI (Next Generation Internet) funds diverse projects from a range of developers: SMEs, entrepreneurs, academics and activists––one of them is NGI Search. The vision of the NGI Search project is to ‘change the way we use and experience search & discover data and resources in general on the internet and on the web’, with the condition that all code from deliverables must be made open source. (https://www.ngisearch.eu/) Ethnographic interviews/surveys will be conducted with some of the developers to comprehend the ethics and values of the forms FOSS is taking within their awarded search projects and the sustainability of open source development through various lenses (financial, ideological, mental health, community, etc). This research delves into the ethics implicit in FOSS and open source business models, thereby contributing a theoretical framework/data visualisation mapping of humanising open source software and sustainability development.