The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology has released a report <https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/13/eu_open_source_study_highlights/> on the economic impact of open source, both software and hardware, within the EU. The report’s authors talked to companies and developers, looked at existing research, surveyed repos on GitHub and ran economic analyses, among other things. Conclusion: there is economic value in open source, but corresponding business investment in it is lacking (though smaller companies tend to be better at this). Also adoption in the public sector can be quite difficult. Further conclusion: if businesses are happy to take but not so keen to give back, then it may be up to Government to give them a nudge in the right direction. One of the authors offered this encouragement: "There are companies that do see the value of contributing back, and some less so… those companies that contribute a lot and are very active in communities see that as an advantage, because when you contribute to it, you can also steer it, know how to fix it… if you have standing in that community, you are more likely to have the community respond to your need."