Open Source during War: Challenges of Independent Development Teams in Ukraine

To launch an important initiative, in September–October 2022 I interviewed 15 independent development teams that make open-source products for Ukraine’s victory in the war. Here are the findings.

General observations

1. Share of source code. Open source accounts for up to 90% of the code of the solutions developed; its role is key in most solutions used.
2. “Not only software”. Open hardware architectures are actively used, allowing maximum cheapness of solutions.
3. “Licensing afterwards”. During the war, no one looks at licenses; the main aim is to eliminate more enemies. Everyone understands order will have to be restored after the war for MVPs to become businesses.
4. “Changed code is not published”. Since an open-source solution can be exploited by the enemy, developers generally do not publish their code.
5. “The new Kalashnikov”. Many solutions use the Raspberry Pi platform plus autopilot or other software — aptly called “the new Kalashnikov in the age of computers”. The platform allows both quick prototyping and working solutions “in production on the battlefield”.

Main problems noted by respondents

1. Lack of good open-source solutions and experts in radio electronics;
2. Many developers don’t know how to work with open source and lack qualifications to deploy complex solutions — “it’s easier to write a basic solution from scratch than deal with a complex and old one”;
3. The open-source ecosystem lacks tools for development and debugging;
4. Duplicate solutions: without common repositories, duplicated solutions are made by different teams unaware of each other;
5. No unified architecture and development standards, especially among volunteer groups, delaying integration;
6. Most programmers contracted into the army spend time on shifts, not programming;
7. No good systems for monitoring experiments between teams in AI development;
8. No ready-to-use pipelines for the release of cloud solutions;
9. Not enough datasets;
10. The issue of rights to AI developed on datasets with unclear authorship;
11. The question of how the developed IT systems will be operated, and by whom, is inefficiently solved.

Instead of a conclusion

In the first 2–3 months of the war, the community of Ukrainian programmers created a large number of open-source solutions useful “right now and today”. As the conflict continues, both sides are improving their tools. IT infrastructure needs a more thoughtful architecture, qualified personnel, management and complex infrastructure — essentially the release of IT solutions “into full-fledged commercial production” during the war, where open source often shows unpreparedness.

There is also the license problem: developers have to deliberately violate licenses by hiding code so as not to disclose it to the enemy. This should be systematically settled at the level of standard licenses — for example, by introducing “open-source licenses for military communities” which allow disclosure of the code only within certain communities.

Best regards,
Vitaliy Goncharuk
LinkedIn