Celebrating the Q1 2025 recipients of Bloomberg’s FOSS Fund

Open source software is foundational to Bloomberg’s engineering culture. As an open source-first company with a deep commitment to philanthropy, Bloomberg believes it is imperative to strengthen the broader technology ecosystem by sustaining the projects that power its products and services.

These principles led the firm to launch the Bloomberg Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Contributor Fund in January 2023. The initiative is designed to empower the company’s technologists to vote on directed grants to open source projects that they use, admire, and believe in, in order to support the communities and people behind them that keep the web running.

The FOSS Contributor Fund, led jointly by Bloomberg’s Open Source Program Office (OSPO) and Corporate Philanthropy teams, actively engages technologists across the firm in the allocation of funding to open source projects. It also provides financial support to maintain or expand projects, gives recognition to well-deserving technologies, and fosters a greater sense of ownership, responsibility, and pride within Bloomberg’s internal open source community.

Let’s meet the Q1 2025 recipients who have been awarded Bloomberg FOSS Contributor Fund grants of $10,000 each: OpenMetadata and Wikimedia Foundation.

OpenMetadata: OpenMetadata is an open and unified metadata platform for data discovery, observability, and governance. Since managing data across modern systems can be messy, OpenMetadata helps clean that up by providing a standard for metadata management, getting the right data to the right people, informing data lineage, and collectively managing risk and compliance. It’s helping organizations understand and trust their data, enabling teams to make better decisions, faster.

“We are deeply honored to receive the Bloomberg FOSS Fund grant as recognition of the OpenMetadata community and validation of the amazing work our contributors are doing,” said OpenMetadata committer Sriharsha Chintalapani. “At OpenMetadata, our mission is to democratize data discovery, observability, and governance for every data team. It’s the reason why thousands of companies — from startups to Fortune 500s — rely on OpenMetadata everyday to unlock the value of their data. This grant will be put back into our community to ensure our ecosystem evolves at the pace of modern data and AI.”

Wikimedia Foundation: Wikimedia is the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and a constellation of other free knowledge projects. Wikipedia is one of the world’s most visited websites and a cornerstone of open knowledge on the internet. It’s maintained by volunteers who can edit text, data, references, and images. It’s also a reminder that not all open source impact is technical – some of it is cultural and educational.

“The Wikimedia Foundation is grateful to receive this grant from Bloomberg’s FOSS Fund. As the host of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia free knowledge projects, this funding will support the technology that makes Wikipedia possible and improvements to how people read and share knowledge on the site,” said Lisa Seitz Gruwell, Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Advancement Officer. “This recognition from Bloomberg’s staff is testament to Wikipedia’s value as the world’s largest open source free knowledge project, made possible by a global community of nearly 260,000 volunteers committed to making trustworthy knowledge accessible to all.”

Alyssa Wright of Bloomberg’s OSPO shares, “OpenMetadata and Wikimedia Foundation join 24 other impactful open source projects that have been recognized by the Bloomberg FOSS Contributor Fund over the past two years. This program plays a pivotal role in how Bloomberg supports open source, and my team is proud to give back to the communities that make modern software possible.”

The FOSS Contributor Fund represents one key facet of Bloomberg’s broader, sustained commitment to supporting the open source ecosystem. Wright explains, “We do a great deal to support the open source ecosystem, empowering our engineers to be active and leading contributors, and providing support to the foundations and communities vital to open source. Corporate Philanthropy is an incredible partner in this work.”

Francesca Romano of Bloomberg’s Corporate Philanthropy team comments, “What sets Bloomberg’s open source strategy apart is how deeply it’s shaped by our long-standing commitment to philanthropy. Charitable giving and service are central to our culture, and we apply that same spirit to open source and the critical digital infrastructure that drives innovation. Through initiatives like our FOSS Contributor Fund, we’re proud to invest in a stronger, more sustainable and impactful open source ecosystem.”

Additional FOSS Contributor Fund recipients will be announced throughout the year, each one a reflection of the vital role open source plays in powering innovation both within Bloomberg and in the shared digital world around us.