Linux Foundation secures $12.5 million to strengthen open source security and support maintainers
The Linux Foundation has announced a total of $12.5 million in grants from Anthropic, AWS, GitHub, Google, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and OpenAI to strengthen the security of the open source software ecosystem. The funding will be managed by Alpha-Omega and the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), trusted security initiatives within the Linux Foundation, to support the development of long-term, sustainable security solutions for open source communities worldwide.
As the security landscape grows more complex, advances in AI are increasing the speed and scale of vulnerability discovery in open source software. Maintainers are now facing an unprecedented influx of security findings, many of which are generated by automated systems, without the resources or tooling needed to triage and remediate them effectively.
Through this investment, Alpha-Omega and OpenSSF will work directly with maintainers and their communities to make emerging security capabilities accessible, practical, and aligned with existing project workflows. The effort will support sustainable strategies that help maintainers manage growing security demands while improving the overall resilience of the open source ecosystem.
“Alpha-Omega was built on the idea that open source security should be both normal and achievable. By funding audits and embedding security experts directly into the ecosystem, we’ve proven that targeted investment works,” said Michael Winser, Co-Founder of Alpha-Omega. “Now, we’re scaling that expertise. We are excited to bring maintainer-centric AI security assistance to the hundreds of thousands of projects that power our world.”
“Grant funding alone is not going to help solve the problem that AI tools are causing today on open source security teams,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman of the Linux kernel project. “OpenSSF has the active resources needed to support numerous projects that will help these overworked maintainers with the triage and processing of the increased AI-generated security reports they are currently receiving.”
“Our commitment remains focused: to sustainably secure the entire lifecycle of open source software,” said Steve Fernandez, General Manager of OpenSSF. “By directly empowering the maintainers, we have an extraordinary opportunity to ensure that those at the front lines of software security have the tools and standards to take preventative measures to stay ahead of issues and build a more resilient ecosystem for everyone.”