Block Joins Open Source Initiative, Launches Public Policy Lab to Advance Open Source Ecosystems

At Block, we believe that open source software is the backbone of a fairer, more innovative digital world. Today, we’re excited to announce two developments to support this vision:

1. We’re proud to announce our sponsorship of the
   Open Source Initiative
   (OSI). The OSI is the steward of the
   Open Source Definition
   , and sets the foundation for the open source software ecosystem. We will combine our real-world experience building open source infrastructure with OSI’s deep expertise in open source governance and standards, creating a stronger collective voice to help policymakers understand the nuanced needs of open source ecosystems.
2. The launch of our Open Source Public Policy Lab. We believe more public policy work should be done in the open, and this new initiative is dedicated to advancing policies, laws and regulations that sustain, protect and grow the open source ecosystems we all rely on.

Open source has always played an important role in Block’s work. For more than a decade, our teams have actively contributed to core open source projects, supported key libraries and infrastructure, and prioritized transparency in our development processes. Our track record includes:

• Our early involvement through the Android community with critical libraries such as
  OkHttp
  , our modern HTTP client for Java/Kotlin that is now the default HTTP client on Android devices
• Our role in creating
  gRPC
  , a high performance language-agnostic RPC framework for communication between client and service, and between services
• Partnerships with like minded
  organizations
  like W3C, Kotlin Foundation and Thanks.Dev — a reflection of our longterm embrace of open collaboration.
• Our commitment to defending the legal foundations of open source is also demonstrated through our founding of the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA), which successfully challenged false ownership claims over Bitcoin's open source codebase in the UK.

Nearly all modern technology — from operating systems to cloud infrastructure and even the technology that enables you to read this content right now — is built on open source foundations. Our Cash App and Square products are no exception. They rely on open source components; some of which predate us, others we’ve

ourselves or alongside other tech companies. We’re continuing to create the open source infrastructure of the future with projects like , an extensible, LLM-agnostic .

Transparency and inclusivity are more than just principles for our teams — they’re essential components of progress. That’s why we established an

. Our work now is a natural evolution of our commitment to open source, dedicated to preserving, advocating for, and strengthening the open source ecosystems we all depend on.

What Do We Stand For?

We’ll start by sharing our initial views on open source and inviting dialogue on them. These are our guiding principles. They will evolve, feedback is encouraged.

1. The open source software community needs more national and international regulatory strategies for open source. There is so much great work already being done, but the breadth and importance of open source software, and its developer community, merits more mindful, ambitious and harmonized regulatory approaches. We believe coordinated strategies, crafted by policy makers and regulators at a national level and standard setting bodies at an international level, are needed.
2. Clearer legal and licensing frameworks are needed that support and protect open source developers. Licensing frameworks can be complex and intellectual property laws can pose challenges to the open source community. Organizations like the Open Source Initiative and Free Software Foundation are already doing great work which needs wider support so that legal and licensing frameworks deliver for open source.
3. Incentivize contributions to open source. To encourage greater participation in the open source ecosystem, governments could consider financial incentives, such as extending R&D tax relief, eligibility for grant funding, or procurement preferences.
4. Open source supports robust cybersecurity. As governments worldwide grapple with cybersecurity challenges, there's a growing need to explore how security frameworks can better account for the unique characteristics of open source development. The distributed, collaborative nature of open source projects requires different regulatory and supervisory approaches. Standards bodies are well-positioned to explore how cybersecurity guidance can be adapted to support the open source ecosystem.
5. Regulators and policy makers should facilitate controlled testing environments to learn about open source. While there's growing policy interest in open source, many regulators lack direct experience with its collaborative development model. Controlled tests can offer a structured way to bridge this knowledge gap, allowing supervised experiments that reveal how potential regulations might impact open source communities and development practices. This evidence-based approach can help deliver policies that support rather than hinder open source innovation.

So what’s next? We’re focusing on the intersection of public policy and open source, and helping unlock even more value for developers, maintainers, and users around the world through our policy work.

We are thrilled to collaborate with like-minded organizations such as OSI and are working on other exciting joint initiatives, we’ll share soon. We look forward to expanding this already extensive support for the open source ecosystem.

Whether you're a developer, policymaker, researcher or open source advocate, we want to collaborate. Stay tuned for future discussions, where we will make more announcements, share more perspectives and invite further dialogue. Please reach out via social media or directly at

and let’s continue the conversation.

Open source is a civic resource which already powers the digital world today. Let’s make sure it’s treated like one.