OpenUK Wants Britain to Stop Giving Away Open Source Creations
Log in
Sign up
Sign in
Log in
Subscribe
OpenUK Wants Britain to Stop Giving Away Open Source Creations
They point to MCP, built by two engineers in London, that ended up under US-based governance.
Sourav Rudra
28 Jul 2026<br>2 min read
On this page
OpenUK recently published its AI Openness report, and buried inside the 40-page document is a big ask from the UK government. Build Britain its own foundation that holds code, governance, and standards the way the Linux Foundation (LF) does in the US.<br>If you are hearing that name for the first time, OpenUK is a UK-based (obviously) non-profit that advocates for open technology and is led by Amanda Brock. They first put out this call in a report titled "Making the UK the Home of Open Source," which was submitted to UKRI earlier this year.<br>The AI Openness report restates the case with added urgency this time.<br>The ask<br>Characterizing the proposed British flavor of LF as a National Foundation , the body, once formed, would hold repositories, standards, and datasets built with UK public money rather than watch that work migrate to servers and governance boards based elsewhere.<br>It would also handle training, community engagement, and event organizing. Those are areas that would otherwise need separate infrastructure, like an open source program office (OSPO) and a sovereign fund.<br>OpenUK frames this as a funding and governance gap more than a technology one.<br>They note that the UK ranks as Europe's top country in open source software and AI openness, yet it has no equivalent to the Linux Foundation, Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency , or China's Open Atom Foundation to show for it.<br>UK is bleeding open source<br>The non-profit didn't have to look far to prove its point, as MCP is the group's strongest example.<br>The Model Context Protocol , now the standard behind how AI models connect to outside tools and data, was created by two engineers in London. Anthropic backed the protocol and eventually donated it to LF's Agentic AI Foundation, alongside Block's goose and OpenAI's AGENTS.md specification.<br>In conversation with OpenUK, David Soria Parra, one of MCP's co-creators, said that they gave MCP away because they needed the standard to stay vendor neutral, free of trademark and licensing risk.<br>If the UK had an established foundation, then they wouldn't have lost MCP to the US. 🙃<br>Not the only ones<br>The European Commission has already shown off an initiative to break free from US tech dominance by moving towards an open European digital ecosystem. It would cover fields like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, open hardware, internet technologies, and industrial applications like automotive and manufacturing.<br>Germany is closer to what OpenUK wants for the UK. Its Sovereign Tech Fund has turned into a government agency, and the report calls that "the right direction."<br>China has already proven the model works. Open source became a national pillar under its 14th Five-Year Plan, supported by a dedicated foundation called the Open Atom Foundation.<br>DeepSeek’s R1 showed how that focus pays off, leveraging open-weights and knowledge distillation to deliver frontier-level AI at a fraction of the cost.<br>OpenUK looks to garner interest from various public sector organizations across the UK while also aiming to collaborate with global experts, delivering the best proposal for their country as a result.
Enjoyed this update? Support independent Linux news coverage
It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux for the past 14 years. Help us stay independent from big tech. Become a Plus member, enjoy ad-free reading and get 5 eBooks.
Plus yearly
Ad-free, FREE ebooks
Join yearly
Best value
Plus lifetime
Pay once, Enjoy forever
Go lifetime
Buy us a coffee
Any amount, no commitment
Support on Ko-fi
News
Share
Share
Share
Share
Feedback
About the author
Sourav Rudra
A nerd with a passion for open source software, custom PC builds, motorsports, and exploring the endless possibilities of this world.
Featured
And Folks, We Have a Vibe Coded Linux Distro!
GCC Compiler Bans AI Code Contribution But Sensibly
Ubuntu 26.10 "Stonking Stingray": All the New Features So Far
Plex's Open Source Alternative Jellyfin is Having a Leadership Crisis
GNOME's Security Might Be in Peril as Lone Tracker Goes Off
Latest
Exploring Kittens With Kitty Terminal Emulator
31 Jul 2026
Keychron Built Open Source Firmware for Gaming Mice, and Linux Users Stand to Gain the Most
30 Jul 2026
FOSS Weekly #26.31: Ubuntu 26.10 Features, OpenUK, Graphene Trouble, Vibe Coded Linux and More
30 Jul 2026
Become a Better Linux User
With the FOSS Weekly Newsletter, you learn useful Linux tips, discover applications, explore new distros and stay updated with the latest from Linux world
Subscribe
Great! Check your inbox and click the link.
Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.
❤️
Support Independent...