# Open Source Chronicle

## Preface

> Translator: Biaowei Zhuang, Reviewer: Ted Liu

In compiling this year’s Open Source Chronicle, we are profoundly reminded **that open source and AI, as dual engines of innovation in the digital era, are reshaping the global technological landscape at an unprecedented pace**. The 2024 Chronicle not only documents the rise of China’s open source influence but also highlights seismic shifts in the global open source ecosystem—where every breakthrough in technology, every paradigm shift in governance, and every geopolitical maneuver are inextricably linked to the future of open source communities worldwide.

Due to the restructuring of chapters, our open-source chronicle for this year primarily focuses on significant events outside the development of artificial intelligence technology. Beyond AI, the open-source world in 2024 is equally fascinating, and we have summarized the following characteristics:

- **Open Source Technology Leaps Forward**
The proliferation of domestic programming languages, groundbreaking progress in homegrown AI and big data ecosystems, and the large-scale adoption of RISC-V chips underscore how open source continues to define the cutting edge of technology.

- **Security Risks Reach Grave Proportions**
The discovery of the XZ backdoor that lurked undetected for three years, coupled with state-sponsored supply chain attacks, has subjected open source defenses to their most severe test yet.

- **Community Upheavals Intensify**
Controversies such as the expulsion of Russian contributors from the Linux kernel project and the licensing shift of Redis that spurred the Valkey fork reveal deepening fractures in the collaborative foundations of open source.

- **Geopolitical Tensions Escalate**
The U.S. tightened AI chip export controls, while the EU advanced open source compliance legislation, accelerating the global battle for technological sovereignty.

- **Governance Paradigms Evolve**
China’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling affirming the enforceability of GPL licenses, and the rise of Valkey as a Redis fork signaled a pivotal moment in redefining open source governance frameworks.

- **Education Initiatives Flourish**
Over 100 universities launched dedicated open source courses, and collaborative projects involving tens of millions of lines of code have catalyzed a new era of talent cultivation.

- **Policy Shifts Reshape the Landscape**
National and regional open source policies took effect across China, even as global compliance frameworks clashed, cementing open source as a strategic battleground in the digital economy.

This report transcends mere documentation; it seeks to illuminate critical trends. As AI begins authoring code, as geopolitical divides fracture technical ecosystems, and as legal precedents redefine open source boundaries, we stand at a historic inflection point. We hope this Chronicle — a tapestry of technological breakthroughs, security warnings, commercial experiments, and policy debates — will serve as a navigational beacon for China’s open source community through turbulent transformations. For the rules governing tomorrow’s open source world are being written today, by the hands of its practitioners.
<br>

## 1. Open Source Technologies

> Translator: Yi (RollRoll) Yuan, Reviewer: Yi (RollRoll) Yuan

### 1.1 Operating Systems and Programming Languages

- Linux Kernel 6.7 Release Announcement

The stable release of Linux Kernel 6.7 has been announced, featuring over 17,000 non-merged commits and more than 1,000 merged commits, making it one of the largest kernel versions to date.

- Real-Time Linux Patch Merged in Mainline Kernel

At the European Open Source Summit in September 2024, Linus Torvalds announced the acceptance of the 'PREEMPT_RT' (Real-Time Linux) patch into the Linux mainline kernel. Starting from Linux 6.12, all distributions will include real-time Linux code, allowing Linux to operate on more mission-critical devices and industrial hardware.

- StarryOS Open Source Initiative

Zhongguancun Laboratory, Ant Group, Peking University, Southern University of Science and Technology, among others, jointly released the open-source system software stack "StarryOS," providing a secure and reliable technology foundation to global developers.

- MoonBit Programming Language Build System Released

The build system "moon" for the MoonBit programming language has been officially released as open source, providing functionalities for compilation, automated testing, coverage testing, and package management. It also offers comprehensive project structure and dependency information for IDEs to ensure a smooth user experience in highly interactive development environments.

- ByteDance's Linux Kernel Network Packet Capture Tool netcap

ByteDance's STE team has released the Linux kernel network packet capture tool "netcap," which can track nearly the entire kernel network protocol stack, helping developers enhance the efficiency of identifying network packet loss issues.

- Python Surpasses JavaScript as Most Popular Language on GitHub

According to the GitHub Octoverse 2024 report, Python has surpassed JavaScript to become the most popular language on GitHub, primarily due to its dominant position in data science, machine learning, and scientific computing. The report highlights significant growth in the global developer community, especially in India, Nigeria, and Brazil, with open source remaining a cornerstone of innovation on GitHub.

- Huawei's Self-Developed Programming Language 「Cangjie」

Huawei officially announced its self-developed programming language "Cangjie" at the HDC 2024 conference. This language is designed for all-scenario application development, offering efficient programming, safety, reliability, ease of concurrency, exceptional performance, and agile scalability. It supports declarative UI and one-time development for multiple platforms.

- Progress on C++ and Rust Interoperability

The Rust Foundation released a statement on "C++/Rust interoperability issues," outlining future work plans to provide transparency and encourage collaboration to overcome interoperability challenges.

- Java 23 Launch Announcement

Java 23 is now fully launched as a non-LTS (Long-Term Support) version, with Oracle providing support for six months. This version includes 12 JEPs (Java Enhancement Proposals), featuring changes such as switching ZGC to a generational mode.

- Major Updates for Go+

Developed by a Chinese team, Go+ is a static programming language based on Go, designed for engineering, STEM education, and data science. In 2024, Go+ introduced significant new capabilities, including support for the Go+ Mini Spec and the ability to import C and Python libraries.

- Didi's Flutter Hybrid Development Framework Unify Open Sourced

Didi's international takeaway team has officially open-sourced its hybrid development framework "Unify," which addresses communication challenges between Flutter and native modules in large-scale cross-end scenarios.

- Microsoft Releases MS-DOS 4.00 Source Code

In collaboration with IBM, Microsoft has released the source code for MS-DOS 4.00 under the MIT license, stemming from the discovery of an unpublished version of the DOS 4.0 beta binary file.

- Kylin Software Releases Cross-Platform

Universal Linux Component Klink
Kylin Software has launched the cross-platform universal Linux interconnect component "Klink," supporting the discovery, connection, networking, authentication, and secure data transmission between devices on Linux.

- Tongji University's Safe Computing Operating System Open Source

Tongji University has developed a computational middleware called XuWare for mission-critical systems, which prioritizes real-time performance, security, and reliability. The core implementation code has been open-sourced to the OpenAtom openEuler community.

- Mojo Programming Language Open Sources Standard Library

The AI programming language Mojo has announced the open-source release of its core standard library, which includes functionalities for optimizing AI hyperparameters that determine how neural networks process data. Mojo aims to combine the usability of Python with the portability and performance of C, targeting AI research and production.

### 1.2 Data Infra

* **The Decline of HBase, the Database Giant**
Pinterest's engineering team has announced plans to phase out its HBase clusters and transition to database technologies such as Druid/StarRocks, Goku, KVStore, and TiDB. Pinterest once operated the largest HBase deployment globally, but due to high maintenance costs, a shortage of skilled professionals, and functional limitations, the company has decided to gradually retire HBase. This decision has sparked widespread discussion within the tech community about HBase's future prospects.

* **Chinese Open-Source Time-Series Database IoTDB Tops TPCx-IoT**
Originating from Tsinghua University, the open-source time-series database IoTDB has claimed the top spot on the internationally authoritative TPCx-IoT ranking, setting new world records for both performance and cost-effectiveness. IoTDB is designed to meet the stringent demands of large-scale IoT and industrial IoT applications.

* **PostgreSQL 17 Released**
PostgreSQL 17, the latest version of what is often referred to as the world's most advanced open-source database, has been officially released. The new version includes improvements for large-scale database operations and enhancements to the developer experience.

* **Huawei Officially Open-Sources openUBMC**
As the management hub for computing power devices, the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) is central to the intelligent management of computing nodes. Based on Huawei's BMC, openUBMC facilitates a community-driven ecosystem that minimizes redundant development costs and achieves plug-and-play adaptability between hardware (southbound) and network management (northbound). Leveraging openUBMC's advanced micro-component architecture and one-stop development capabilities via BMC Studio, partners and developers can efficiently adapt hardware, quickly develop app components, flexibly customize northbound interfaces, and rapidly develop proprietary features to build differentiated competitive advantages.

* **Microsoft Announces Open-Sourcing of Data Processing System Drasi**
Microsoft has announced the open-sourcing of a new data processing system called Drasi, which can detect and respond to changes in complex systems, simplifying the detection and response to critical events. The project has been submitted to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

* **Tencent Open-Sources High-Performance Logging System BqLog**
Tencent has open-sourced its high-performance logging system BqLog, a lightweight, cross-platform, and high-performance logging component originally developed for *Honor of Kings* (international version). Implemented in C++, it also supports Java and C# calls. BqLog can be used with game engines such as Unreal and Unity, as well as in Android and iOS app environments.

* **Kubernetes 10th Anniversary Celebration Reflects on Its History and Open-Source Contributions**
At the Kubernetes 10th anniversary celebration held at Google's headquarters, Kelsey Hightower and Solomon Hykes reflected on the evolution of container technology and its impact on the tech industry. Early competition between Docker and Kubernetes was intense, with Docker's user-friendly interface challenging Google's cloud computing strategy. Despite initial conflicts, collaboration among open-source projects eventually unified the container community.

* **CockroachDB Adjusts Open-Source License to Encourage Enterprise Payments**
Cockroach Labs, the commercial developer behind the distributed SQL database CockroachDB, announced a change in its licensing strategy. Five years after abandoning the open-source model, the company has decided to unify its self-hosted product under a single enterprise license. The goal is to incentivize large enterprises to pay for the features they truly need. Meanwhile, startups below a certain revenue threshold can use the same enterprise edition for free, with the hope that they will grow to a point where they require and can afford these advanced features.

* **Canonical Announces Long-Term Support for "Distro-Less" Containerized Applications on K8s**
Canonical has extended its long-term support (LTS) services from the Ubuntu Linux distribution to open-source software packaged as Docker containers, providing up to 12 years of security support. The focus is on maximizing efficiency in Kubernetes environments. These LTS containers are certified to run on Canonical's MicroK8s and Charmed Kubernetes platforms, as well as other major Kubernetes environments such as Red Hat OpenShift and VMware Tanzu.

* **OSSummit Highlights: The DevOps Era Is Not Over, but It’s Not Thriving Either**
The DevOps era is not over, but its vitality appears less robust than expected. At cdCon, held during the North American Open Source Summit (OSSummit), the Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF) released its fifth annual CI/CD State of the Union report. The report highlighted significant challenges in DevOps deployment metrics. While 83% of developers engage in DevOps work, only 14% can deploy code within a day—a figure unchanged since 2020. The frequency of multiple daily deployments has dropped from 11% in 2020 to 9%, and only 11% of respondents can restore services within less than an hour.

* **Elastic Announces Open-Source Licensing for Elasticsearch and Kibana**
Elastic has announced the adoption of the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL) for portions of the source code of Elasticsearch and Kibana. This move aims to enhance open-source participation and adoption, allowing users and developers to freely use, modify, redistribute, and collaborate on the software. The transition to AGPL will not affect existing SSPL 1.0 or Elastic License 2.0 users, nor will it alter Elastic's binary distributions. This license update underscores the company's commitment to open-source transparency and community collaboration.

* **IBM May Revert Terraform's BSL License to Open-Source**
Amid IBM's impending acquisition of HashiCorp, discussions have arisen about the potential shift of Terraform's BSL (Business Source License) back to a more permissive MPL (Mozilla Public License). IBM's longstanding commitment to open source—particularly its contributions to Linux and its stance on GPL (General Public License) protections—provides clues that Terraform might return to a more open-source-friendly licensing model.

* **Databricks Acquires Tabular to Embrace Open Source**
Following its acquisition of Tabular, Databricks has merged the Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake formats, unifying the field. This move aims to standardize data lakehouse environments and enhance functionality by leveraging the features of both formats. Despite differences between Delta Lake and Iceberg, Databricks seeks compatibility through its open-source format, Delta Lake UniForm.

* **Ant Group Open-Sources Cloud-Based Next-Generation Version Control System HugeSCM**
Ant Group has open-sourced its cloud-based next-generation version control system, HugeSCM, designed to address repository scalability challenges in the development process. It can handle the challenges of both extremely large single repositories and massive single files. Compared to traditional centralized version control systems (e.g., Subversion) and distributed version control systems (e.g., Git), HugeSCM is not constrained by storage architecture or transmission protocols.

### 1.3 AI & AI Apps

* **Elon Musk Announces Open-Sourcing of Grok Model Weights and Network Architecture**
Elon Musk's xAI has officially announced the open-sourcing of the foundational model weights and network architecture of the large language model Grok-1 under the Apache 2.0 license. The model has 314 billion parameters, far surpassing Meta's Llama 2 (70 billion), Mistral 8x7B (120 billion), and OpenAI's GPT-3.5 (175 billion), making it the largest open-source large language model to date.

* **Meta Releases Llama 3 and Other Open-Source Models to Enhance Performance and Applications**
Meta has launched the latest in its Llama series, the Llama 3 AI models, available in two versions: Llama 3 8B and Llama 3 70B, with 8 billion and 70 billion parameters, respectively. Both models have demonstrated superior performance in multiple AI benchmarks, outperforming similar competitors. Meta claims significant improvements in dataset size, diversity, and performance, particularly in code generation, history, and STEM-related question answering.

* **Mistral AI Open-Sources Large Model Mistral 8x22B**
Mistral AI has open-sourced a large model called Mistral 8x22B, with a file size of 281.24 GB. This model is a "super-sized" version of last year's open-source "mixtral-8x7b," featuring three times the parameters and consisting of an expert network with 8 experts, each with 22 billion parameters (8×22B).

* **BAAI Open-Sources General Operator Library FlagGems for Large Models**
FlagGems has become the world's largest general-purpose operator library for AI based on Triton, featuring over 130 operators frequently used in large models. It outperforms CUDA in average operator performance on NVIDIA hardware. Currently, FlagGems supports multiple AI chips from seven manufacturers, including NVIDIA, aiming to provide an open-source, unified, and efficient operator layer ecosystem for diverse AI chips.

* **Alibaba Open-Sources Tongyi Qianwen Qwen2 Large Models**
Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen Qwen2 large models are now available on Hugging Face and ModelScope. The Qwen2 models use different licenses: while Qwen2-72B retains the previous Qianwen License, other models, including Qwen2-0.5B, Qwen2-1.5B, Qwen2-7B, and Qwen2-57B-A14B, are licensed under Apache 2.0.

* **Inspur Information Releases "Yuan 2.0-M32" Open-Source Large Model**
Built on the existing Yuan 2.0 series, "Yuan 2.0-M32" introduces and utilizes "gated networks based on attention mechanisms" to construct a mixture-of-experts (MoE) model with 32 experts. This approach enhances computational efficiency, with 3.7 billion parameters activated during runtime.

* **ByteDance Doubao Team Open-Sources FullStack Bench**
FullStack Bench is a dataset focused on full-stack and multi-language programming code evaluation. It is the first in the industry to include over 11 real-world scenarios in full-stack programming, covering 16 programming languages and 3,374 problems. Compared to previous benchmarks, it more effectively evaluates large models' real-world coding capabilities. Additionally, the team has open-sourced SandboxFusion, an efficient code sandbox execution tool for evaluating programming tasks across different languages.

* **Stanford University Team Open-Sources Edge Device Model Octopusv2**
Stanford researchers have introduced a new open-source edge device model, Octopusv2, with 2 billion parameters. It is specifically designed for Android devices but is also suitable for cars, personal computers, and other edge devices. The model outperforms GPT-4 in accuracy and latency while reducing context length by 95%.

* **DeepSeek Open-Sources DeepSeek-V3**
The first version of the new DeepSeek-V3 series has been released and open-sourced. DeepSeek-V3 is a self-developed MoE model with 671 billion parameters, activating 37 billion during runtime. Pretrained on 14.8 trillion tokens, the team reports that DeepSeek-V3 outperforms other open-source models like Qwen2.5-72B and Llama-3.1-405B, achieving performance comparable to top proprietary models such as GPT-4o and Claude-3.5-Sonnet.

* **Ant Group & Zhejiang University Open-Source Knowledge Extraction Framework OneKE**
Ant Group and Zhejiang University have jointly developed and open-sourced the knowledge extraction framework OneKE, supporting both Chinese and English. Based on full-parameter fine-tuning of LLaMA2, evaluations show its strong performance in multiple tasks involving entity, relation, and event extraction.

* **Apple Releases OpenELM AI Models to Enhance On-Device AI for iPhones**
Apple has unveiled a series of AI language models called OpenELM, designed to improve the efficiency of AI applications on devices like iPhones. The series includes four models with parameter sizes of 270 million, 450 million, 1.1 billion, and 3 billion. These lightweight models are optimized for devices such as smartphones and laptops. OpenELM is open-source, enabling developers to use them immediately for text-related tasks, such as drafting emails.

* **Databricks Announces Open-Source AI Model DBRX**
DBRX uses a transformer architecture with 132 billion parameters, comprising 16 expert networks, of which 4 are activated during inference, totaling 36 billion parameters. In areas such as language understanding, programming, mathematics, and logic, DBRX outperforms leading open-source models like Meta's Llama 2-70B, Mistral's Mixtral, and xAI's Grok-1.

* **Amazon CTO Develops Open-Source Meeting Summary App**
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels and his team have developed an open-source app called Distill for transcribing and summarizing meeting content. The app leverages multiple Amazon services, including AWS Transcribe for voice transcription, Amazon S3 for storage, and the Bedrock platform for summarization. Distill can convert meeting content into text and to-do lists, with integration options for platforms like Slack. While Distill allows users to select different AI models for summaries, manual adjustments may still be required, emphasizing the limitations of AI and the importance of critical thinking.

* **Meta Open-Sources MEGALODON for Efficient Long-Sequence Modeling**
Researchers from Meta, in collaboration with the University of Southern California, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of California, San Diego, have open-sourced a new large language model called MEGALODON. The model features infinite context length with linear computational complexity. At comparable scales, it outperforms the Llama 2 model in multiple benchmarks.

* **End-to-End RAG Solution RAGFlow Officially Open-Sourced**
RAGFlow is a complete RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) solution allowing users to upload and manage their own documents, supporting various document types. It enables users to query documents using large models.

* **DAMO Academy Open-Sources Document Processing Model mPLUG-DocOwl1.5**
Alibaba DAMO Academy, in collaboration with Renmin University of China, has open-sourced the mPLUG-DocOwl1.5 document processing model. This model can understand document content without OCR and has achieved leading performance in multiple visual document understanding benchmarks. mPLUG-DocOwl1.5 emphasizes the importance of structural information and is now available on GitHub.

* **Meta Open-Sources New Multi-Label Predictive Language Models**
Meta has released a series of innovative language models with multi-label predictive capabilities. These models aim to predict multiple tokens simultaneously, providing faster and more efficient language processing compared to traditional single-token prediction models. Designed for applications such as chatbots, translation services, and other AI-driven communication tools, the models generate more coherent and contextually appropriate responses, improving the overall user experience.

* **Qdrant Introduces Pure Vector Hybrid Search for More Accurate AI Data Retrieval**
Qdrant, a high-performance open-source vector database, has announced BM42, a new pure vector-based hybrid search method designed for modern AI and augmented retrieval generation applications. This new algorithm marks a new era in text-based keyword search capabilities, suitable for RAG and AI applications, allowing enterprise clients to seamlessly integrate the strengths of both approaches.

* **Google Releases and Open-Sources Gemma 2 Language Model with 27 Billion Parameters**
Google DeepMind has open-sourced Gemma 2, part of its new generation of small language models. Google has made several improvements to the Gemma architecture and employed knowledge distillation techniques, giving the models state-of-the-art performance. Gemma 2 outperforms comparable models of similar size and rivals those twice its size.

* **NIST Releases Open-Source AI Model Risk Testing Tool**
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has reintroduced a tool called Dioptra, designed to measure the impact of malicious attacks—especially those that "poison" AI training data—on AI system performance. Dioptra is an open-source, modular, web-based tool first released in 2022. It helps companies training AI models assess, analyze, and track AI risks. NIST states that Dioptra can be used for benchmarking and research and provides a common platform for testing models in simulated "red team" threat environments.

* **Meta Open-Sources DCPerf for Benchmarking Large-Scale Workloads**
Meta, formerly Facebook, has developed its own performance testing tool, DCPerf, to measure the performance demands of its massive-scale applications, which require extensive server usage. The company has released this benchmarking suite on GitHub under the MIT open-source license for use by academia, the hardware industry, and other internet companies. DCPerf is designed to evaluate large-scale computing workloads, offering a range of benchmark models based on Meta's large-scale applications.

* **Shanghai AI Lab Open-Sources PDF Extraction Tool MinerU**
MinerU is a tool that converts PDFs into machine-readable formats, facilitating extraction into any format. The project aims to address symbol conversion issues in scientific literature, contributing to technological advancement.

### 1.4 IoT and Open Source Hardware

* **Shanghai Releases "ChainWeaver," an Open-Source Technology Platform for City-Level Blockchain Infrastructure**
The Shanghai Future Internet Technology Research Institute has launched "ChainWeaver," a next-generation Web 3.0 foundational open-source technology platform. This platform will support the construction of Shanghai's city-level blockchain infrastructure.

* **Great Wall Motors Unveils China's First Automotive-Grade MCU Chip Based on Open-Source RISC-V Core**
Great Wall Motors has officially announced the completion and successful activation of its jointly developed RISC-V automotive-grade MCU chip, the Zijing M100. This is China's first automotive-grade MCU chip designed with an open-source RISC-V core, featuring faster processing speeds and reduced latency while meeting multiple international standards.

* **Tencent Open-Sources Autonomous Driving Simulation Software TAD Sim**
Tencent has announced the open-sourcing of its autonomous driving simulation software, TAD Sim. The software is based on Tencent's professional game engine and centimeter-level digital twin 3D reconstruction technology, supporting closed-loop simulation verification of full-stack algorithms. It aims to reduce development costs and shorten development cycles.

* **Xiaomi to Open Over 10 Million Lines of Xiaomi Vela Open-Source Code**
Xiaomi plans to enhance the user experience of devices such as smartwatches and smartphones through deep integration with Android and Linux systems, while extending its applications to broader IoT scenarios such as automobiles, robotics, and smart manufacturing. Xiaomi will release over 10 million lines of Xiaomi Vela open-source code, having completed compliance reviews and optimized the out-of-the-box experience. The primary open-source repository will be hosted on GitHub, with a mirror site on Gitee.

* **CAS Releases Third-Generation "Xiangshan" Series Kunming Lake Open-Source High-Performance RISC-V Processor Core**
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has introduced the third-generation "Xiangshan" series Kunming Lake high-performance RISC-V processor core. Its performance is comparable to Intel's 12th-generation Core processors and rivals the Arm Neoverse N2 core.

* **USTC and Huawei Release Open-Source EDA Physical Design Framework**
The MIRA Lab at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and Huawei's Noah's Ark Lab have jointly released a new evaluation framework and dataset, which are fully open-source. This standard is expected to address inconsistencies between layout metrics and final performance in chip physical design.

## 2. Open Source Software Security

> Translator: Feng (Jason) Wang, Reviewer: Feng (Jason) Wang

https://hackmd.io/@2024COSR/ByfyOFasJe/edit

## 3. Open Source Community Ecology

> Translator: Biaowei Zhuang, Reviewer: Biaowei Zhuang

### 3.1 Dynamics of Key Persons
In the open-source ecosystem, the outstanding contributions of individuals often serve as a vital force driving technological advancements. In 2024, we witnessed the passing of several key figures whose work had profound impacts on computer science and open-source communities:

* **Death of Niklaus Wirth (father of Pascal)**
Niklaus Wirth, Turing Award winner and father of the Pascal programming language, passed away on January 1, 2024. He not only developed a number of influential programming languages, but also first introduced the concept of “computer arithmetic”, which laid the foundation for the development of modern programming languages.

* **Death of Gordon Bell (computer pioneer)**
Dr. Gordon Bell, a major figure in computing, passed away on May 17th at the age of 89 years. His research advanced the development of early computer architectures and made indelible contributions to the field of distributed computing.

* **Death of Larry Finger (Linux wireless development pioneer)**
Larry Finger, who made significant contributions to the field of Linux wireless driver development, passed away on June 21st. His work provided solid support for the use of wireless networking technologies in open source systems, benefiting users worldwide.

* **Stiver (author of the Java decompiler Fernflower) has passed away**
Stiver, the original author of the Java decompiler Fernflower, passed away in October after a long illness. The tools he developed were popular for software debugging and reverse engineering, and had a profound impact on the Java development ecosystem.

* **Death of Thomas Kurtz (Co-Inventor of the BASIC Language)**
Thomas Kurtz, co-inventor of the BASIC programming language, passed away on November 12th. He created a language that dramatically lowered the barriers to programming and allowed computer technology to be accepted and used by a wider range of people.

* **James Gosling, Father of Java, Announces Retirement**
On July 9, 2024, James Gosling (James Gosling), the founder of the programming language Java, announced his retirement on social media platforms. The Canadian computer scientist, known as the “father of Java,” reportedly just celebrated his 69th birthday. Gosling said: “I finally retired. After so many years as a software engineer, it's time for me to have some fun. Despite the industrial climate, the last seven years at Amazon have been great. I still have a string of side projects to accomplish that will be fun.”

* **Longtime AMD Open Source Linux Graphics Driver Champion John Bridgman Retires**
After more than a quarter of a century with ATI/AMD, John Bridgman has officially announced his retirement. He is well known in the open source community for his work on the Linux kernel and the Mesa 3D graphics library, particularly on drivers for AMD Radeon graphics cards. His work has had a significant impact on improving graphics performance on Linux systems and the usability of open source software.

* **Russ Cox, Technical Lead of the Go team, has announced that he is stepping down**.
In August 2024, Russ Cox, who has led Google's Go team and the entire Go project for more than 12 years, announced that he will step down as technical lead on September 1, 2024, a decision he said was made after a deep process. He said the decision was a deliberate one, designed to bring new energy and perspective to the project. His replacement, Austin Clements, has been working on the Go language at Google since 2014, where he was responsible for the compiler toolchain, runtime, and releases. Russ Cox emphasized that the role of technical lead is one of service, not honor, and that he will continue to be involved with the Go project, but hopes that the change in leadership creates more room for the project to grow.

* **Redis Founder antirez Announces Return**
Redis founder antirez has decided to return to the Redis community after about 1620 days away from the Redis project. He mentioned that he didn't have a strong attachment to the Redis project, but that he had been working on occasional programming projects during his time away. The reason for his return was that he wanted to try new things, especially writing, and spend more time with his family. He has noticed a split in the Redis community, which worries him, and is considering returning to the Redis ecosystem, possibly as an “evangelist” to bridge the gap between the company and the community.

* **Safari Chief Designer Joins Company Behind Arc Browser**
Charlie Deets, the lead designer of Apple's Safari browser, has left Apple to join The Browser Company, the company behind Arc Browser, potentially improving the performance and user experience of Arc Browser.

### 3.2 Community Dynamics and Controversies

* **Robin Li's Controversial Remarks Angering the IT industry**
On July 5, 2024, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, participated in a roundtable discussion on open-source versus closed-source models. He unequivocally characterized open-source models as an "intellectual tax," asserting that closed-source models would maintain dominance due to their ability to offer customizable variants balancing performance, inference speed, and cost efficiency. His declaration—"Closed-source models should always be the choice"—sparked widespread criticism across the industry, as it implicitly disparaged both open-source providers and their user base.

* **Will PHP be worth learning in 2024?**
Despite falling to an all-time low (#17) in the TIOBE Index, software engineer Sotiris Kourouklis has published an article stating that PHP will still be a good choice for web development in 2024.PHP's popularity in the web development space, community support, flexibility, and good integration with other technologies continue to keep it competitive in the marketplace. PHP's popularity in web development, community support, flexibility and good integration with other technologies allow it to remain competitive in the market.

* **ModelBest's CEO posts a response to a Stanford AI team's “plagiarism” incident**
On May 29, an AI team from Stanford began to advertise on the web that a SOTA multimodal model could be trained for $500, called Llama3-V, which was later found to be a plagiarized copy of Facade Intelligence's MiniCPM-Llama3-V 2.5. Facade Intelligence CEO Dahai Li said that users in the open source community helped discover the plagiarism, and that open source's self-cleaning ability played an important role in the process. We deeply regret this incident,” said Li Dahai. On the one hand, we lament that this is a way to be recognized by international teams, and on the other hand, we call on everyone to build an open, cooperative, and trusting community environment.” “We want the good work of the team to be noticed and recognized by more people, but not in this way.”

* **India is on track to overtake the United States as the world's largest software developer nation by 2027**
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke said that India is expected to overtake the US to become the world's largest software developer nation by 2027 as AI technology evolves. This has raised a lot of concerns and doubts in the Chinese open source community.

* **Linux Kernel Expels Russian Contributors, Prompting Farewell Letter from Linux Kernel Developer Serge Semin**
The Linux project's recent removal of several Russian maintainers for compliance reasons has sparked widespread debate in the kernel community. linus Torvalds, the author of Linux, has also been involved in the debate, saying that as a Finn he could not have supported Russia's aggression, and refusing to disclose the details of what his lawyers have told him and the other maintainers of the kernel about the compliance requirements. He believes a lot of the controversy is coming from Russian “Trolls”. This made Serge Semin very sad, so he posted a farewell letter to the community expressing his dissatisfaction with the way it was handled and thanking the community members who had worked together for many years. He said that while he was still willing to help, the incentive to continue participating as a volunteer had disappeared under the current circumstances.

* **KDE pop-up fundraiser sparks controversy & revenue spike**
Nate Graham, a developer for the KDE project, submitted a PR for a “pop-up window” in the notification system of the KDE Plasma desktop asking users to donate. This feature has been available since Plasma 6.2 and occurs only once a year in December. The results showed that KDE e.V. received twice as many donations in one day as in the previous two months combined, and user feedback was mostly positive.

### 3.3 Personnel Changes in Open Source Organizations and Teams

* **Controversy over enforcement of Python community's code of conduct**
The Python Steering Committee has announced a three-month suspension of core developer Tim Peters for multiple violations of the Python Software Foundation's Code of Conduct. Peters reportedly made a number of posts that could have triggered emotional reactions from community members, used offensive language, and more. The decision raised questions in the community about the transparency of the enforcement of the code of conduct.

* **Rust for Linux project maintainer quits for non-technical reasons**
Wedson Almeida Filho, one of the Rust for Linux kernel maintainers and a Microsoft engineer, has announced his resignation from the project, primarily due to a long history of culture clashes and disrespect with C developers. He was frustrated with the non-technical aspects of the project, and his energy and enthusiasm were sapped. In an email, he expressed his gratitude to the team and reiterated his belief in the importance of memory-safe languages in kernel development.

* **Economic Pressure on Open Source Project Maintainers**
Simon Hofmann, the core developer of the open source UI automation/testing tool nut.js, has decided to charge for some of its features, reflecting the economic pressures open source project maintainers face in seeking sustainability for their projects.

* **ECharts Founder Moves to Agriculture**
ECharts founder Lin Feng has announced that he is leaving Baidu to join the agricultural venture capital field, “going into the sea” to raise fish, and raising top streams. This triggered a hot debate among users, reflecting the trend of diversification of technical talents. There are also netizens questioned: I do not know whether he is tired of the life of the Internet factory or some other reason.

* **The developer of Neofetch archived the project, leaving only one sentence: I'm going to plant!**
Not coincidentally, on April 26, Neofetch developer Dylan Araps has archived his GitHub repository, marking the end of the project. In the repository's README.md file, he left behind a short sentence: “Have taken up farming”. Dylan's choice has generated a lot of buzz in the community, despite the fact that there are several similar competitors out there.

### 3.4 Project Disputes and Team Changes

* **Google dismantles Python base team**
In April 2024, Google disbanded its U.S.-based Python Foundation Team. Team member Thomas Wouters confirmed the news on social media, stating that Google plans to reorganize the new Python team in Munich, Germany. The move was seen as a reorganization strategy due to cost considerations, raising questions in the community about Google's decision to lay off the Python team in the age of AI.

* **Flutter team layoffs and the emergence of the Flock fork project**
In May 2024, Google's Flutter team was affected by a wave of layoffs at the company and the team was downsized. Carroll, a former Google employee, announced the launch of a fork called Flock to address the long backlog of bugs and feature delays in the Flutter project. the Flock team wanted to keep Flutter up to date and engage community contributors to make up for Google's lack of investment in resources.

* **WinAmp open source repository removed**
Less than a month after announcing that it was open source, the WinAmp project team suddenly deleted its GitHub repository.WinAmp is a well-known multimedia player, and the project team released the source code for the Windows side of the project on GitHub in September 2024, under the Winamp Collaborative License (WCL). Version 1.0 agreement placed restrictions on user forks and modified distributions. It is unclear exactly why the repository was removed.

* **EndeavourOS ARM branch ending**
The founder and project lead of EndeavourOS has announced that the distribution's ARM branch is coming to an end due to a lack of up-to-date upstream changes and maintainers. This highlights the challenges of maintaining open source projects, especially for projects with limited resources.

* **Greenplum GitHub repository becoming read-only**
The GitHub repository for Greenplum, a well-known open source MPP database, has suddenly become read-only, raising concerns in the community about the future direction of the project. There are no official details on the change.

* **SerenityOS author steps down from BDFL, forks Ladybird**
SerenityOS creator Andreas Kling has announced that he is stepping down as the project's dictator for life (BDFL) and forking the new project called Ladybird. He says the move is to allow the two projects to develop independently of each other, and has no ulterior motives.

* **Team Rust Announces 2024 Development Goals**
The Rust team has announced 26 project goals for the second half of 2024, including the release of Rust version 2024. The plan is to complete development of the Rust 2024 release features later this year and to release a beta version of Rust v1.85 on January 3, 2025 and a stable version of Rust v1.85 on February 20th.

* **FreeBSD Receives Nearly €700,000 in Investments**
The Sovereign Tech Fund (STF), Germany's sovereign technology fund, has agreed to invest €686,400 in the FreeBSD project to drive improvements in infrastructure, security, regulatory compliance and developer experience. STF has previously funded other open source projects such as GNOME, PHP, Rustls, Coreutils uutils, and others.

* **Controversies within the WordPress Community**
WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg forked and took control of the popular plugin Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), which is maintained by rival WP Engine, due to a conflict with the latter, and later publicly rebuked WP Engine, which is built on WordPress, for Mullenweg then publicly criticized WP Engine, which is based on WordPress, for profiteering without giving much back to the community. Things quickly escalated, with WP Engine filing a lawsuit after being denied access to key WordPress resources, and the court subsequently ordering WordPress to restore access. The move sparked a community debate about the spirit of open source and control of the project.

### 3.5 Open Source Industry & Ecology

* **Nanjing's Open Source Industry Alliance was inaugurated**
The Nanjing Open Source Industry Alliance was inaugurated during the Nanjing Software and Information Service Industry Conference 2024. The alliance aims to promote open source collaboration, develop the open source software industry, and attract open source talent. With the launch of this project, the Nanjing Municipal Government expects to build Nanjing into an industry highland for open source software, and drive technological innovation and digital transformation in the region.

* **Chengdu releases list of 85 open source collaboration opportunities**
On August 30, 2024, at the “2024 Chengdu Open Source Eco-Construction Conference”, the Municipal New Economy Committee of the Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology officially released the “2024 Chengdu Open Source Collaboration Opportunity List” at the conference. There are 48 demand lists and 37 supply lists, involving technological innovation, scenario application, carrier platform, talent construction, public services and other aspects. The conference also officially released the “Chengdu Open Source Community Map”. The map covers major open source organizations, well-known projects and technology exchange platforms in Chengdu, aiming to promote technology sharing and cooperation, and stimulate more innovation possibilities. It will help developers to find like-minded friends and enterprises to discover excellent open source projects.

* **Status of Open Source Maintainers: Low Pay, Aging, and Flooded with Security Issues**
Tidelift has released its State of the Open Source Maintainer 2024 report, noting that about 45% of maintainers have been in the role for more than 10 years, that the age distribution of maintainers is aging, and that most maintainers are unpaid enthusiasts. The report also highlights the growing security concerns of open source projects.

* **OpenHarmony Ecosystem Growing Rapidly**
On December 20, 2024, version 5.0 Release of the OpenHarmony operating system was officially released. The OpenHarmony project has been continuously open to the community on the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation's platform, with more than 120 chips adapted and more than 900 hardware and software products passing compatibility evaluation; the community has gathered more than 8100 contributors and more than 70 organizations for continuous co-construction, with a cumulative total of more than 120 million lines of project code; and the OpenHarmony talent ecosystem has extensively covered more than 300 colleges and universities, attracting more than 70,000 teachers and students to actively participate in the development of the OpenHarmony operating system. The open source talent ecology has widely covered more than 300 colleges and universities, attracting more than 70,000 teachers and students to actively participate in the closed-loop path of “learning, examining, using, competing, and staying”, and more than 50,000 developers have passed the open source talent certification exam, and more than 20 industry chain enterprises have opened up open source positions. More than 20 upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain have opened up open source positions. At present, the ecological devices based on OpenHarmony have exceeded 1 billion units, continuously empowering the transformation and upgrading of thousands of industries.

### 3.6 International Collaboration

* **Open source cooperation in the joint statement of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Russia**
In the joint statement of the two countries, special mention is made of: mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of information and communication technologies, including artificial intelligence, communications, software, the Internet of Things, open source, cyber and data security, video games, radio frequency coordination, vocational education and specialized scientific research. The two sides agreed to establish and make good use of a regular consultation mechanism to strengthen cooperation in AI and open source technologies, coordinate their positions when considering AI regulatory issues on international platforms, and support international conferences related to AI organized by the other side.

* **Open source cooperation in China-UAE joint statement**
In the statement, the two sides are willing to strengthen cooperation in innovation, digital economy, science, open source project incubation and commercialization, science, technology and technical talent training, clean energy, infrastructure, and all industrial sectors including precision and core industries by exploring common investment opportunities between the two countries, emphasizing a strong willingness to strengthen the complementarity of supply chains between the two sides in order to achieve economic and investment growth and realize the friendly expectations of both countries.

* **Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) strengthens China-Africa cooperation in the digital sector with open-source operating system solutions**
Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong said at the China-Africa Digital Cooperation Forum held in Beijing on July 29 that it will continue to uphold the principle of common business and common sharing, actively engage in cooperation in the digital field with African countries, and help build “Digital Africa”. It is worth mentioning that with the application of mobile payment on the ground in Africa, Open Source Ola, as an open source operating system incubated by the Open Atom Open Source Foundation, will provide solutions in security, vulnerability management and operation and maintenance.

* **The 2nd Open Source Congress was held in Beijing.**
The second Open Source Congress (“OSC”), organized by the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation, was successfully held in Beijing from August 25th to 26th. the Linux Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation, the Open Source Initiative (OSI), the OpenInfra Foundation (OIF), the Open Source Foundation (OSF), and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) were invited to participate in the conference, Linux Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Open Atomics Open Source Foundation, Open Source Initiative (OSI), OpenInfra Foundation (OIF), Open Invention Network (OIN), Rust Foundation, KAIYUANSHE, and 24 other open source organizations participated in the conference. Focusing on key topics such as open source artificial intelligence, open source security, cooperation among open source organizations, and the future development of OSC, the conference discussed common challenges faced by the global open source field, explored how to promote global open source and open cooperation, and effectively promoted exchanges and cooperation among global open source organizations. The cooperation of global open source forces breaks the boundaries of geography and culture, and the successful convening of this OSC conference provides a stage for the majority of open source organizations to discuss challenges, share wisdom, and work together to shape a more open, innovative, and sustainable open source future.

## 4. Open Source Licensing and Compliance Governance

### 4.1 Case Ruling Highlights Elevated Status of Open Source License

> Translator: Jianfan (Sir) Wei, Reviewer: Jianfan (Sir) Wei

The health and stability of the open-source ecosystem rely heavily on the robust support of a legal framework. In 2024, a series of rulings related to open-source cases once again demonstrated the law's clear endorsement of open-source initiatives: open-source licenses hold legal standing, the use of open-source must comply with legal standards, and developers' rights are protected by law. These rulings will steer the development of open-source software toward a healthier, more orderly, and innovative direction.

- On February 18, 2024, the headline article in the *People's Court Daily*, titled "This Ruling Gives Software Developers Peace of Mind," sparked widespread discussion in the open-source community. The ruling, issued by the Supreme People's Court, is significant because it not only affirmed the legal validity of the GPLv2 license but also effectively protected the rights of software developers. The case involved Suzhou-based Network Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Suzhou Company), which claimed that its "OfficeTen" software had been misappropriated by Zhejiang-based Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Zhejiang Company). Zhejiang Company argued that OfficeTen was subject to the GPLv2 license's "copyleft" provision and thus should be open-sourced, meaning their actions did not constitute infringement. Suzhou Company, however, contended that it had used technical means to ensure that the upper-layer functional software was "independent and separate," making it immune to the copyleft effect and thus eligible for copyright protection. On October 12, 2023, after reviewing the case, the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court ruled in favor of Suzhou Company, finding Zhejiang Company guilty of infringement. The court reasoned that "whether a software developer violates the GPLv2 license and whether they enjoy copyright protection are two relatively independent legal issues. These should not be conflated, as doing so could unreasonably deprive or restrict developers of the copyright they are legally entitled to based on their original contributions."

- Another interesting ruling came from the Intermediate People's Court of Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, in the "DedeCMS" case. Shanghai Zhuozhuo Network Technology Co., Ltd. sued a dental hospital for using its DedeCMS V5.7 - sp1 software without paying licensing fees. On February 19, 2024, the Wuxi court ruled against Zhuozhuo's primary claims. The court found that although this version of DedeCMS was commercial, it included open-source sphinxclient code protected under the GPLv2 license. As a result, DedeCMS was deemed to be subject to the GPL's copyleft provision. The court stated, "The software as a whole, due to its connection with the GPL-licensed library, should have been released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license." The court further noted, "Zhuozhuo Company failed to comply with the GPL license terms when using others' code, which violates the principle of good faith and constitutes improper conduct."

Consequently, the court ruled that the hospital's use of DedeCMS did not infringe on Zhuozhuo's reproduction rights. However, the hospital had failed to include attribution information on its website homepage as required by Zhuozhuo's licensing agreement, thereby infringing on Zhuozhuo's right of attribution. The final ruling required the hospital to compensate Zhuozhuo with 800 RMB and issue a public apology statement for 30 days.

This case presents a subtle distinction from the earlier Supreme People's Court ruling on the OfficeTen case, primarily in two aspects: First, regarding whether the software was subject to the GPL's "copyleft" effect, the Supreme Court determined that OfficeTen was not affected by the GPL, whereas the Jiangsu Intermediate Court concluded that DedeCMS was indeed subject to it. Second, the manner in which the accused party obtained the source code differed. In the OfficeTen case, Suzhou Company had not publicly released the source code, and Zhejiang Company's acquisition of the code was deemed illegal. In contrast, in the DedeCMS case, the source code of the disputed version had been publicly released by Zhuozhuo Company.

Additionally, the court made an important observation: "Zhuozhuo Company, relying on the disputed software as the basis for its claims, has initiated a large number of computer software copyright infringement cases in courts across the country, thereby reaping significant financial gains. This litigation model not only fails to effectively address the root causes of infringement but also consumes substantial public resources for dispute resolution. Such practices should not be encouraged or promoted."

- On February 14, 2024, the French Court of Appeal's ruling on the Lasso case once again unequivocally affirmed the robust standing of the GPLv2 license. French telecommunications company Orange had won a bid to develop a portal website for the French Electronic Communications Authority and, during the implementation, used the Lasso software library (released under GPLv2) published by Entr'ouvert. The court found that Orange had violated multiple provisions of the GPLv2, including failing to disclose the source code and engaging in unauthorized copying and distribution. Orange was ordered to pay 650,000 euros in damages. This ruling underscores the importance of corporate compliance with open-source licensing.

- After nearly two years, on July 5, 2024, three claims made by programmers alleging infringement by GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI were dismissed in court, leaving only two claims pending. The plaintiffs, five anonymous programmers, had filed a lawsuit in November 2022 against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI, accusing their Copilot coding assistant of infringement. They argued that these companies used their code to train Copilot and provided it to other programmers without proper acknowledgment of their work or adherence to the original licensing terms. Judge Jon Tigar disagreed with this view, stating that the code suggested by Copilot was not sufficiently similar to the developers' copyrighted works. This lawsuit highlights the complex challenges of software copyright protection in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. While GitHub and others currently hold the upper hand, the ongoing controversy indicates a need for further refinement of laws to address the new challenges posed by AI.

- On November 22, 2024, Deno submitted a petition to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) requesting the cancellation of Oracle's "JavaScript" trademark. Deno argued that "JavaScript" has become a generic term, that Oracle submitted deceptive evidence during the trademark renewal process, and that Oracle has not effectively used the trademark for many years. Over 14,000 developers supported this petition. Oracle has informed Deno that it will not voluntarily relinquish its rights to the "JavaScript" trademark. Deno will now begin gathering evidence to prove that "JavaScript" is widely recognized as a generic term. According to U.S. law, if a trademark is no longer in use with no intent to resume use, or if it has become a generic term, the trademark rights should be considered abandoned. If Deno's petition succeeds, it will remove barriers for the community to use the term "JavaScript," allowing its use in conference names, language specifications, and other contexts without legal threats. Deno is a JavaScript and TypeScript runtime environment based on the V8 engine, developed by Ryan Dahl, the creator of Node.js.

### 4.2 Controversial Incident Highlights the Difficulty of Reconciling the Interests of Multiple Stakeholders

> Translator: Jianfan (Sir) Wei, Reviewer: Jianfan (Sir) Wei

The series of open-source events in 2024 have shown us that an increasing number of people are developing a sense of open-source compliance. They recognize the importance of respecting the original authors' labor and ensuring their rightful interests. On the other hand, more and more people are realizing that the relationship between enterprises and the open-source community is becoming more complex, with intensifying conflicts of interest. Individual authors of open-source projects may face pressure from commercial companies, while open-source businesses may struggle against "free-riding" by cloud providers. Balancing personal interests, community interests, and commercial interests among open-source authors, open-source startups, and large corporations remains a challenging issue with no perfect solution. Breakthrough innovations in the management and development models of open-source projects are still needed.

- On October 23, 2024, the Linux kernel development community removed some maintainers with .ru-suffixed email addresses from the MAINTAINERS file. Many developers expressed confusion and sought explanations from the Linux community. Linus Torvalds personally responded, stating that the decision would not be reversed. Some netizens argued, "Linux is free software, and the freedom of free software should not be restricted by any factors, including nationality and political circumstances." However, the four freedoms defined by Richard Stallman, the father of free software, refer to the freedom to run, study, modify, and distribute the software, and do not include the freedom to contribute. Although this decision did not violate the spirit of the license, many intuitively felt that Linus was in the wrong, as his actions seemed to violate the Code of Conduct (CoC), which prohibits mockery, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks.

- On March 20, 2024, the CEO of Redis announced that future versions of Redis would abandon the BSD license and adopt the RSALv2 and SSPLv1 dual licenses, neither of which meets the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of open source. The previously used BSD 3-Clause License was relatively permissive, while the new licenses impose restrictions, such as RSALv2 limiting commercial use and SSPLv1 requiring derivative works of the server to be open-sourced. Redis made this change to prevent cloud providers from freely using its source code for commercial gain. This move sparked significant controversy, as developers pointed out that Redis has many external contributors and that Redis the company did not initially participate in its development; it merely acquired the intellectual property and trademark rights from Redis' original creator, Antirez. Currently, Microsoft appears to have obtained a license from Redis to continue offering Redis products and services to its customers. Interestingly, just one day before Redis' announcement, Microsoft open-sourced the Garnet project under the MIT license, positioning it as a competitor to Redis. Many netizens commented, "Microsoft is trying to take away Redis' market share." This move by Redis also directly led to the creation of the Valkey project, which aims to replace Redis and continue its open-source development. Valkey was initially launched by Amazon, with engineers from Google and Oracle joining shortly after, and it became part of the Linux Foundation within a week.

- On November 15, 2024, a popular Bilibili UP主 (content creator) with over 12 million followers, known as "Teacher He," used the ASCII generator open-source project (licensed under MIT) developed by Viet Nguyen on GitHub in his video titled "I Made an Animation with 360,000 Lines of Notes..." but claimed, "We specifically wrote a software for this." This sparked widespread discussion. Viet Nguyen expressed dissatisfaction, accusing Teacher He of stealing his work. Netizens also criticized Teacher He for removing the original author's copyright notice in the code displayed in the video, violating the MIT license requirements. Faced with criticism, Teacher He admitted that the software was modified from the open-source program, stating, "As the project leader, I lacked professional sensitivity regarding technical matters. The project was not properly divided, and I failed to identify the issue during the process, leading to this mistake." Teacher He also contacted Viet Nguyen personally to apologize, and Viet Nguyen accepted the apology.

- Terraform, an infrastructure-as-code software developed by HashiCorp, was originally open-sourced under the MPL-2.0 license. In August 2023, HashiCorp changed its open-source license to the BSL. Subsequently, the Linux Foundation launched OpenTofu, an open-source fork of Terraform, which continued to use the MPL-2.0 license. In February 2024, an InfoWorld contributor pointed out that a feature in OpenTofu was similar to one in HashiCorp's new version of Terraform (a non-open-source version), and the code was also similar. Soon after, HashiCorp's legal team sent a notice to OpenTofu, accusing it of infringement. OpenTofu responded by stating that the claim was baseless, as both new features were based on modifications of the previous open-source version of the code, making similarities inevitable.

- In November 2024, Redis contacted Armin Ronacher, the maintainer of the Rust language's redis-rs client library, expressing a desire to take over the project. Redis claimed it wanted to create an officially supported Rust client with enterprise-level features while maintaining compatibility with the community version. However, Ronacher sensed from the conversation that Redis might believe the name "redis-rs" infringed on their trademark. Redis presented two options: either transfer ownership of the project to them or rename it. The technical community on HackerNews discussed this issue extensively, with developers expressing dissatisfaction with Redis' alleged misuse of trademark rights. Some developers suggested fully transitioning to Valkey, an open-source fork of Redis, while others pointed out that individual open-source maintainers could hardly afford the legal costs of confronting a commercial company.

- On August 6, 2024, ZLUDA was removed from GitHub. Initially, the ZLUDA project was an open-source initiative to provide CUDA support for Intel GPUs. Later, it received funding from AMD, and developer Andrzej Janik enabled it to run CUDA applications on AMD GPUs. According to the agreement between Andrzej Janik and AMD, after AMD ceased funding, Janik could open-source the relevant parts. However, six months after the open-source release, ZLUDA was taken down from GitHub at the request of AMD's legal department. Interestingly, this was not due to a legal challenge from NVIDIA but rather a shift in AMD's open-source strategy. Can open-sourced code be closed again? In this case, it happened. AMD's legal team argued that the initial email approval for releasing the code was not legally binding, meaning the open-source release was unauthorized from the start—a mistake! Developer Andrzej Janik stated that, given the circumstances, there was no other choice, but he remained undeterred. He planned to rebuild ZLUDA starting from the codebase prior to AMD's funding. In October 2024, ZLUDA returned to GitHub, open-sourced once again, and with support for AMD GPUs.

### 4.3 National Standards in the Field of Open Source Have Been Released One after Another, and SBOM Has Become the Focus of the Standards

> Translator: Yao (Leon) Liang, Reviewer: Yao (Leon) Liang

In 2024, China made significant progress in the standardization system for open source, with breakthroughs in national standards development. The release of national standards such as GB/T 43848-2024 Cybersecurity Technology—Security Evaluation Methods for Open Source Code in Software Products and GB/T 44272-2024 Information Technology—Open Source—Open Source License Framework marked key milestones‌.Software supply chain security and Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)-related standards gained prominence, including the approval of the industry standard Information Technology—Specification for Software Bill of Materials Data Format and the establishment of the "SBOM Standards Community"‌.

- Cybersecurity Technology—Security Evaluation Methods for Open Source Code in Software Products‌(GB/T 43848-2024)
In April 2024, the national standard GB/T 43848-2024, organized and drafted by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), was officially approved and released. This standard defines evaluation elements and procedures for open-source code security in software products, covering source verification, security quality, intellectual property compliance, and management practices. It applies to static security evaluations of open-source components in software products, providing a basis for organizations to conduct self-assessments and offering reference guidelines for third-party evaluations‌.

- Information Technology—Open Source—Open Source License Framework‌(GB/T 44272-2024)
In August 2024, the national standard GB/T 44272-2024, drafted by the China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI), was officially released. The standard establishes a framework for open-source licenses, specifying their basic structure, preamble, terms and conditions, usage instructions, and compatibility. It addresses issues such as inconsistent licensing norms, legal ambiguities in license obligations, and the lack of unified guidelines for open-source participants. As a foundational standard, it regulates core rules of the open-source ecosystem, fills the global gap in license framework standards, and initiates China’s independent development of open-source licenses. It also enhances understanding and rational use of licenses to promote open-source ecosystem development‌.

- SBOM Standards Community
In September 2024, the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center (NIISDRC) established the "SBOM Standards Community" and launched the "SBOM Chain Initiative" under the national project "Open Source Community Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Platform." Collaborating with 39 research institutions and enterprises, the initiative focuses on SBOM standardization, technological innovation, and practical applications to strengthen software supply chain risk governance. In October 2024, NIISDRC released the Software Bill of Materials Composition and Requirements standard to regulate SBOM development processes, improve software quality and maintainability, and enhance the resilience and security of China’s software industry chain‌.

- Information Technology—Software Bill of Materials Data Format Specification (2024-1400T-SJ)
In December 2024, the industry standard Information Technology—Software Bill of Materials Data Format Specification, led by CESI, was approved (Project Code: 2024-1400T-SJ). As the core component of SBOM, data formats determine the effectiveness of SBOM in delivering actionable information across the software supply chain. This standard addresses gaps in China’s SBOM data format standardization and resolves issues such as redundant fields in existing mainstream formats, ensuring interoperability and industrial resilience‌.

### 4.4 New Breakthroughs in Open Source Licensing in Emerging Fields, Models, Hardware Licenses Officially Released

> Translator: Yao (Leon) Liang, Reviewer: Yao (Leon) Liang

The development of emerging technologies has introduced new challenges in balancing intellectual property rights within legal frameworks, driving demand for innovative open-source licenses‌. While large-scale AI models are advancing rapidly worldwide, traditional open-source licenses—primarily designed for software source code—fail to adequately address rights allocation and governance for model components like parameters, weights, and datasets‌. Concurrently, open-source projects in hardware domains such as chips and robotics face compatibility issues due to fundamental differences between software and hardware IP rights systems, with no globally recognized mainstream hardware licenses currently available‌. To address these gaps, the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation has developed and released specialized open-source licenses tailored for AI models and hardware technologies‌.

- In September 2024, at the ‌OpenAtom Open Source Ecosystem Conference‌, the ‌OpenAtom Open Source Foundation‌ officially launched the ‌OpenAtom Model License, Version 1.0‌, a neutral and universally accessible open-source license designed to support the widespread adoption of large-scale AI models and drive the growth of open-source ecosystems in artificial intelligence‌. Developed through collaboration with institutions such as the ‌China Electronics Standardization Institute‌, ‌Huawei‌, ‌Ant Group‌, and ‌Grandall Law Firm (Nanjing)‌, the license provides a standardized framework for defining rights and governance of model components like parameters and datasets‌. Early adopters include technology leaders such as ‌CETC TaiJi‌ and ‌vivo‌, marking a milestone in aligning open-source licensing with emerging AI innovation needs‌.

- In December 2024, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 OpenAtom Developer Conference and the First Open Source Technology Academic Conference, the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation officially released Version 1.0 of the OpenAtom Open Hardware License. This license aims to provide a freely available open hardware license, maintained neutrally by the foundation, to support the prosperous development of the open hardware ecosystem. Major contributors to the drafting of this license include the OpenAtom Open Source Foundation, the China Electronics Standardization Institute, the OpenSDV Automotive Software Open Source Alliance, and Alibaba Cloud Computing Co., Ltd. The first batch of organizations to adopt this license includes the National-Local Joint Innovation Center for Embodied Intelligent Robots promoted by the OpenSDV Automotive Software Open Source Alliance, Suzhou Changxing Zhijia Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Jialichuang Technology Group Co., Ltd., Shanghai Zhiwei Robotics Co., Ltd., and Realman Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

## 5. Open Source Commercialization

> Translator: Yi (RollRoll) Yuan, Reviewer: Yi (RollRoll) Yuan

### IBM Acquires HashiCorp for $6.4 Billion to Strengthen Its Hybrid Cloud Management Strategy

IBM announced the acquisition of HashiCorp for $6.4 billion, a move seen as a key step in bolstering its hybrid cloud management strategy, particularly in accelerating the deployment of generative AI. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna stated that as generative AI deployment accelerates, HashiCorp has an excellent track record in helping customers automate, orchestrate, and secure hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

HashiCorp is a software company specializing in cloud infrastructure automation, offering tools for managing cloud infrastructure across various computing environments. Its products help enterprises automate and manage their cloud infrastructure, excelling in handling complex multi-cloud environments. The company started with open-source products, including Vagrant, Packer, Terraform, Vault, Consul, and Nomad, and has a broad user base in IT and cloud service management.

### Belgian Startup Aikido Secures $17 Million in Series A Funding to Develop a Simplified Security Platform for Developers

Aikido, a small startup based in Ghent, Belgium, recently announced the completion of a $17 million Series A funding round. The company is dedicated to providing developers with a no-nonsense, open-source security platform aimed at solving the complexity of managing security tools. Aikido emphasizes the ease of use and open-source nature of its product, offering efficient security strategies without excessive notifications and delivering comprehensive security solutions at affordable rates. The company currently serves 3,000 small and medium-sized businesses, with this funding round led by European venture capital firm Singular.

### Paris-Based AI Startup Mistral AI Valued at $6 Billion

According to TechCrunch, Paris-based startup Mistral AI is currently raising funds with a valuation as high as $6 billion, tripling its valuation from December last year. DST, General Catalyst, and Lightspeed Venture Partners have all expressed interest in participating in this funding round. The scale of Mistral AI's fundraising is expected to reach but not exceed $600 million.

Mistral AI, founded in Paris, focuses on developing open-source large language models and aims to deliver generative AI services.

### Redpanda Acquires Open-Source Stream Processing Platform Benthos

Redpanda, a well-funded Kafka-compatible streaming data platform, has announced the acquisition of the open-source stream processing platform Benthos. Although the financial terms were not disclosed, it is worth noting that Redpanda raised $100 million in a Series C funding round a year ago, enabling acquisitions like this.

### Open-Source Data Service Company Cube Raises $25 Million to Strengthen Its "Semantic Layer" Services

Cube, a company providing semantic layer services, helps enterprises organize and standardize relationships between data by building abstract data models. With the rapid growth of data and AI, existing data models face challenges in management and fragility. To address this, Cube has launched Cube Cloud, a subscription-based cloud service that adds automated workflows and enterprise-grade governance deployment tools, aiming to establish a unified platform for data sources and metrics. Cube maintains its competitive edge with over 10 million downloads of its open-source Cube project and Cube Cloud installations on approximately 90,000 servers.

### Open-Source AI Development Platform Secures $85 Million in Seed Funding

The open-source AI development platform Sentient has raised $85 million in a seed funding round led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures. The funding will advance the development of community-driven AI models and incentivize contributions through blockchain technology.

### Open-Source Compliance and Security Platform FOSSA Acquires StackShare

Open-source compliance and security platform FOSSA has confirmed its acquisition of StackShare, a developer community platform where developers can discuss, track, and share the tools they use. FOSSA, valued at over $100 million, provides end-to-end third-party code governance services and initially helped developers identify open-source licenses in their products. By integrating StackShare, FOSSA aims to expand its governance and security services to a broader range of developer tools.

### Hugging Face Acquires XetHub to Enhance AI Storage Capabilities

Hugging Face Inc. has acquired XetHub, a Seattle-based startup specializing in file management for AI projects. This acquisition, reportedly the largest in Hugging Face's history (exceeding $10 million), aims to strengthen the platform's storage infrastructure, particularly for hosting AI models and datasets.

### NVIDIA Acquires Israeli AI Startups Run:ai and Deci

NVIDIA has acquired Israeli AI startups Run:ai and Deci to lower the costs of developing or running generative AI models, helping clients utilize AI computing resources more efficiently and boosting demand for NVIDIA's AI chips. Run:ai has approximately 150 employees and has raised $118 million in total funding, while Deci has around 100 employees and has raised $55 million.

### GitLab, an Open-Source Code Hosting Platform, Considers Sale

GitLab, an open-source code hosting platform with a market value of approximately $8 billion, is considering a sale after attracting interest from several potential bidders.

GitLab has initiated the sale process in collaboration with investment bankers, with peers such as cloud monitoring company Datadog reportedly expressing interest. Datadog, valued at $44 billion, provides software that enables tech workers to collaborate and measure productivity in the cloud.

### Databricks Raises $10 Billion in Funding

Big data and AI company Databricks has announced the completion of its latest Series J funding round, with its valuation soaring to $62 billion. The company expects to raise $10 billion in non-dilutive funding and has already secured $8.6 billion, marking this as the largest venture capital deal of the year.

## 6. Open Source Education

> Translator: Mingkang (Bright) Li, Reviewer: Mingkang (Bright) Li

https://hackmd.io/dpC9LrYNSXmDCFg0gxlWaQ?both

## 7. Open Source Policies

### 7.1 China Domestic Policies

* **Open source policies at the national ministry level**

2024 China's state ministries and commissions have introduced a series of policies in promoting the development of open source technology, aiming to build an open source ecosystem and promote technological innovation and industrial upgrading.

* Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other seven departments: *Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Innovative Development of Future Industries*
* Key tasks: building iconic products, optimizing information service products, developing next-generation operating systems, promoting open-source technologies, building open-source communities, and constructing an open-source ecosystem.
* Participating departments: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
* Four Departments Release *Guidelines for the Construction of a Comprehensive Standardization System for the National Artificial Intelligence Industry (Version 2024)*
* Main content: Promote the construction of an open-source basic framework for AI software, and promote the evaluation of the energy efficiency of AI systems, as well as standards related to the utilization of resources, carbon emissions, and the disposal of discarded parts.
* Participating departments: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Office of the Central Committee for Cybersecurity and Informatization, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and National Standardization Administration Commission (NSAC).
* The four departments issued the *pecial Action Program for Digital Empowerment of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (2025-2027)* of a notice to support the establishment of an AI open source community
* Main content: Promote AI innovation and empowerment, support open source communities such as the Open Atom Open Source Foundation and other open source communities to lead the establishment of AI open source communities, focus on the special needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to set up thematic AI open source projects, and provide replicable and easy-to-propagate training frameworks, development examples, testing tools and open source code. Guide small and medium-sized enterprises to actively participate in open source projects to lower the threshold of AI deployment and development. Encourage leading enterprises, trading organizations, platform enterprises, data service enterprises and other business entities to build public datasets and industry datasets to provide SMEs with high-quality data for AI model training. Build a batch of vertical industry large models applicable to SMEs, and strengthen the supply of large model technology products for SMEs.
* Participating departments: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Finance, People's Bank of China, General Administration of Financial Supervision
* Speech by Mr. Xie Yuansheng, Director General of Radio Administration Bureau, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)
* Main content: Brain-computer interface is listed as one of the top ten iconic products of the future industry that the state will focus on supporting, and it is planned to build an open source community for brain-computer interface.
* MIIT's Instructions on 5G Network Evolution and Upgrade
* Main content: to strengthen the exchange and cooperation with international open source organizations, to jointly build high-quality open source projects and land open source results.

* **Open source policies at the local level**
2024, local governments at all levels have also actively responded to the national call and introduced a series of local open source policies to promote the development of local open source ecology. Among them, the most notable one has to be Beijing!
* Beijing
* Beijing Chaoyang District *Government Work Report 2024*: “Open Source and Open AI Ecology”.
* *Beijing Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a Highland for Innovation and Development of the Information and Software Industry*: Encourage enterprises, public institutions, social agencies and experts to participate in global open source organizations, attract internationally renowned open source activities and conferences to be held in Beijing, and cultivate professional domestic open source community operation teams.
* *Beijing Action Plan to Promote “Artificial Intelligence Plus” (2024-2025)*: Encouraging open-source communities and open-source big models.
* *Action Plan for Panoramic Empowerment of Artificial Intelligence in Zhongguancun Science City (2024-2026)* : Build an international application open source platform, and jointly build, develop and operate an AI application open source platform with head enterprises.
* Guangdong
* *Major Work Plan of Guangdong Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology in 2024* : Accelerating the Construction of Open Source Hongmeng Industrial Ecology.
* *Several Measures of Guangdong Province on Artificial Intelligence Empowering Thousands of Industries* : building a large model open source community.
* *Shenzhen Action Plan for Supporting the Development of Open Source Hongmeng Native Applications in 2024* : By the end of 2024, the number of Hongmeng native applications developed by Shenzhen enterprises will account for more than 10% of the national total.
* *Notice of Shenzhen Bureau of Industry and Information Technology on the Release of Application Guidelines Related to Major Open Source Projects under the 2024 High-Quality Development Project for Software Industry* : Supporting projects for promoting the application of commercial distribution software and procurement of chip modules for major open source projects.
* Shenzhen has released a number of measures to boost the construction of AI pioneer cities, support the construction of full-stack open source system, and reward open source AI software: it will set up a 10 billion yuan AI and body robotics industry fund, and promote the construction of a 100 billion yuan fund investment ecosystem with the synergistic force of “guide fund + angel fund + seed fund + cluster fund”, and give the maximum amount of money to the startups of overseas talents. The ecological system will be promoted to build a 100 billion fund investment synergistically, and a maximum of 1 million yuan will be granted to the business start-up of overseas students.
* Shanghai
* *Shanghai has introduced 117 measures in 8 areas to implement and promote the high-level systematic opening up of the Pilot Free Trade Zone* : to build an international open source promotion organization, to increase the scope and intensity of public data opening up, and to strengthen international cooperation on digital inclusion.
* *Several Measures on Promoting Industrial Services to Enable Industrial Upgrading* : supporting the construction of public service platforms for R&D and design, testing and evaluation, adaptation and verification, open source services, and common technology research and development in key areas of software, meta-universe, and the communications industry.
* Chongqing
* *Chongqing Special Action Plan for 2024 for the In-depth Implementation of the Software and Information Service Industry “Full Star” Action Plan* : accelerate the construction of open source software code hosting platforms, encourage leading enterprises to form project-based open source communities, and vigorously cultivate open source commercialized software enterprises.
* *Several Policy Measures for Supporting the Innovative Development of Robotics Industry with Body Intelligence in Chongqing* : Promote the construction of open source ecology, and guide relevant enterprises to jointly build open source communities with relevant scientific research units and industry organizations in the way of “unveiling the list of commanders”.
* Zhejiang
* *Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the People's Government of Zhejiang Province on Accelerating the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry* : promoting the construction of autonomous and controllable open source communities and open innovation platforms in the field of large models of artificial intelligence, and supporting the research and development of autonomous open source deep learning frameworks and the construction of code hosting mirror platforms.
* *Opinions on Special Policies for Promoting High-quality Development of Software Industry in Ningbo* : Encourage software enterprises to focus on basic software, industrial software (embedded software), and release independent technology open source projects in the field of emerging technology software.
* Chengdu
* *Chengdu High-tech Industrial Development Zone to accelerate the high-quality development of key areas of the digital economy industry Several Policies* : support the construction of open source open platform (community), selecting a number of open source open demonstration platform (community).
* Wuhan
* *Wuhan Several Policies and Measures on Further Promoting the High-quality Development of Software and Information Technology Service Industry* : increasing support for open source projects, encouraging enterprises or related organizations to participate in open source innovation, and fostering and incubating high-quality open source projects.
* Xi'an
* Xi'an Municipality has issued 9 policy documents in 3 major aspects: support the construction of open source chip adaptation centers and industrial innovation centers.

* **Summary**
The main features of China's open source policy in 2024 can be summarized as follows:
* National and local synergistic promotion to build an open source ecosystem
- National level: several ministries and commissions have jointly issued policies, showing the importance the state attaches to open source technology.
- Local level: various provinces and cities (such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shenzhen, etc.) have actively responded to the national policy and launched targeted open source support measures in combination with local industrial characteristics, forming a synergistic promotion mode of “national guidance and local implementation”.
- The policy emphasizes the integrity of the open source ecosystem, including the construction of open source communities, open source platforms and the promotion of open source commercialization, and encourages enterprises, universities, research institutions and other parties to participate in the construction of the open source ecosystem and the formation of a good open source atmosphere.
* Focus on artificial intelligence and future industries, and promote the application of open source technology to the ground
- The core areas of open source policy focus on future industries such as artificial intelligence, big models, operating systems and brain-computer interfaces.
- Promote the application of open source technology in the fields of automatic driving, robotics, pharmaceutical research and development, and industrial manufacturing.
- Support the development of open-source Hongmeng native applications and promote the construction of open-source chip adaptation centers.
* Focus on autonomous and controllable
- The policy emphasizes the development of autonomous open-source technologies and supports the research and development of core technologies such as autonomous open-source deep learning frameworks and operating systems.
* Strong financial and policy support
- Beijing provides subsidies of up to 5 million yuan for the construction of open source communities.
- Shenzhen provides financial support of up to 20 million yuan for major open source projects.
- Wuhan City gives 300,000 to 1 million yuan reward for excellent open source projects.
* Regional synergy and characteristic development
- Shenzhen focuses on open source Hongmeng ecology, to build Hongmeng native application characteristics of industrial parks.
- Beijing builds Zhongguancun open source platform and promotes the development of AI open source community.
- Six cities in central China (Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan, etc.) jointly promote open source sharing mechanism to facilitate regional synergistic development.
* Emphasis on standardization and normalization
- The policy emphasizes standardization in the open source field and promotes open source technology to be in line with international rules.

### 7.2 International Policies

* **Related U.S. Policies**
2024, the United States has taken a series of major initiatives in the field of artificial intelligence, reflecting the great importance and cautious attitude toward the development of AI technology. On the one hand, through legislative and judicial means, it has strengthened export control and security regulation of AI technology to guard against potential national security and social risks (some of the more radical policies are fortunately stillborn); on the other hand, it has actively promoted independent research and development of AI technology in an attempt to maintain a leading position in global competition. At the same time, the U.S. government's antitrust investigations and rulings on tech giants show the U.S. government's determination to maintain fair competition in the market. These measures will have a far-reaching impact on the global technology industry landscape, and deserve continued attention.
* U.S. House of Representatives Passes National Framework for Strengthening Overseas Critical Export Restrictions Act (ENFORCE Act): On May 22, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee overwhelmingly passed the bill, which seeks to tighten export controls on technologies such as AI models, particularly for countries such as China.
* California Governor Vetoes AI Safety Bill SB-1047: In September 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB-1047, a bill sponsored by Senator Scott Wiener. The bill aimed to set safety standards for large-scale AI models, but Newsom argued that it could place too heavy a burden on AI companies and undermine California's dominance in the field.
* U.S. court orders Google to overhaul its Android app business: In October 2024, U.S. Federal Judge James Donato ruled that Google may not restrict competition for the next three years by requiring it to open up its Android app store to allow users to download apps from other platforms and use other in-app payment methods. The move is aimed at breaking Google's monopoly in the Android app market.
* U.S. Department of Justice Recommends Breaking Up Google's Chrome Business: In November 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice recommended that a federal court require Google to sell its Chrome browser and prohibit it from re-entering the browser market for five years. The move is aimed at preventing Google from using its browser dominance to consolidate its monopoly in the search engine market.
* U.S. Launches AI “Manhattan Project”: In November 2024, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) under the U.S. Congress released its annual report, recommending that the U.S. government take reference from the Manhattan Project during World War II and launch a major special project on artificial intelligence, focusing on the nation's strengths and capabilities. The USCC recommended that the U.S. government launch a major program on artificial intelligence (AI) and focus the nation's efforts on accelerating the research and development of general-purpose AI (AGI) to cope with the increasing competition between the U.S. and China in science and technology.
* **Related European Policies**
* Russian Government Considers Charging Local Businesses for Using Foreign Software: In May 2024, Russia's Minister of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, stated that the government is considering imposing a fee on domestic businesses that use foreign software in order to reduce dependence on foreign technology and promote the development of domestic technology.
* Germany's highest civil court rules invention by AI system DABUS patentable: In July 2024, Germany's Federal Court of Justice ruled that a lunchbox designed by the AI system DABUS can be patented, provided a human is listed as the inventor and the application clearly states that the product was conceived by an artificial intelligence.
* Germany's Federal Ministry of Justice Issues Draft Computer Criminal Code to Protect IT Security Researchers: 2024 In November, Germany's Federal Ministry of Justice issued a draft computer criminal code that aims to make clear that certain actions by IT security researchers will not be penalized by the computer criminal code, in order to encourage them to detect and remediate IT security vulnerabilities.
* Switzerland Passes EMBAG Bill Requiring Public Agencies to Open Source Their Software: In July 2024, Switzerland passed the Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Governmental Tasks (EMBAG), which requires all public agencies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them, unless third-party rights or security concerns are involved.
* Apache Software Foundation Expresses Concerns About Upcoming EU Software Regulations: Over the past two years, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and other open source organizations have expressed concerns about the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) in the European Union (EU), particularly with respect to software distributed and sold over the Web. Policymakers have introduced a new concept of “open source stewardship,” creating a new category of economic actor for the software industry. the CRA bill has been extended for one year, until full implementation begins in 2027.
* **Related Policies in Asia**
* In June 2024, the Japanese government proposed three major enhancement policies in the Comprehensive Innovation Strategy 2024, one of which is “Competitiveness Enhancement and Security-Peace of Mind Ensuring in the Field of AI”. The strategy aims to promote the development and application of AI technology through cooperation with a global perspective, while focusing on the safety and social acceptance of AI systems. On the other hand, Japan's copyright law allows the widespread use of copyrighted images and other materials for commercial purposes to train AI models without seeking permission. This has caused alarm and criticism from many creators.
* In December 2024, Malaysia announced the establishment of the National Artificial Intelligence Office (NAIO), which aims to focus on policy development and regulatory issues in this way, and to promote AI leadership in Malaysia and beyond, thereby establishing Malaysia as a regional hub for AI.