Open Source: Advancing Our Digital Commons Q&A in Campus Technology
— In a recent Campus Technology Q&A (Mar. 9, 2026), UMBC VP of IT and CIO Jack Suess emphasized that the era of open source that was once driven almost entirely by higher ed is now “growing more and more diverse.” Suess notes that governments and big tech firms (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) rely heavily on open source to avoid vendor lock-in, and he urges the higher-ed community to seize similar opportunities. “Open source is going to be a long-term staple in the world,” he says, but asks: “how is higher ed going to participate in this open world in a way that it will be able to leverage the capabilities that open source can provide, and really grow those capabilities… to the benefit of society?”
