This blog post was originally published on the CNCF blog page on January 20, 2026. 

Welcome to the January 2026 edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter.

We’re starting the year strong with growing momentum across the open source community. This year’s first newsletter is packed with project updates and momentum. Check out the highlights and be sure to register for upcoming events!  

Here are this month’s highlights:

• The 2025 Linux Foundation Annual Report: “Innovation in the Open” 

The 2025 Linux Foundation Annual Report looks back at a pivotal year for open source, spotlighting major milestones across projects, community growth, research, global events, and new foundation launches. 

• • Read the full report >> 

• Jim Zemlin on the Latent Space Podcast: Inside the Launch of the Agentic AI Foundation 

The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemmlin was a guest on the number one podcast for AI engineers, alongside leaders from Anthropic, OpenAI and Block, to discuss how the recently announced AAIF came together, why neutrality and open governance matter for agentic AI, and the early momentum building across the foundation as MCP (model context protocol) gains adoption.

• • Watch the full episode >> (skip to 1:03 for the discussion)

• 2026 Predictions: What LF Leaders See Coming Next

Linux Foundation experts are already mapping the year ahead. Christopher Robinson, CTO at OpenSSF,  predicts a developer community that continues to grow larger and more diverse. Arpit Joshipura, GM & SVP at the Linux Foundation, shares his 2026 outlook on AI-native networking, agents and edge AI – and checks his scorecard on last year’s predictions. Spoiler alert: he nailed it.

• • Read more in BetaNews and the LF Networking Blog

• CAMARA Project Releases New White Paper on MCP for AI Applications 

CAMARA’s latest white paper shows how combining open network APIs with MCP, a cutting edge technology now governed by the Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation, enables a new class of secure, network-aware AI applications with deeper real-world context.

• • Read more in the LF Newsroom >>
  • Read the full white paper >>

>> Read on for even more news, research, and opportunities from across the Linux Foundation.

PS: Register now for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026 March 23-26

Welcome to the December 2025 edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter.

Winter is nearly here, and the Linux Foundation open source ecosystem continues to break new ground. This month, we announced the formation of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), bringing together critical open standards and frameworks - including Model Context Protocol (MCP), AGENTS.md and goose - for next‑gen AI agents under a neutral, community‑driven umbrella. We also saw continued growth in global collaboration, advances in infrastructure and AI tooling, and strategic developments across projects that are shaping the future of open technology. Thank you to all the contributors, maintainers, members, and staff driving this impact forward and have a wonderful holiday season. 

Here are more of this month’s highlights:

• Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) Launches to Advance Open Standards for AI Agents
  Last week we announced the launch of the AAIF with contributions from Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), Block’s goose agent framework, and OpenAI’s AGENTS.md, with membership support from AWS, Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Cisco, and other leading organizations. The move sets the stage for shared standards and tools as agentic AI systems scale across industries.
  • Read more about the launch in Wired, The Verge, and our press release here.  
• New Linux Foundation Research Report: The State of Open Source Japan 2025
  At this year’s Open Source Summit Japan, LF Research released The State of Open Source Japan 2025, with new data highlighting how strategic open source engagement accelerates business value and innovation in Japanese enterprises. The report sheds light on adoption trends, challenges with governance and skills, and opportunities for open collaboration in cloud, AI, and digital transformation initiatives.
  • Read more about the report in Open Source For You and the LF blog here. 
• Mitsubishi Electric Joins as Linux Foundation Gold Member at Open Source Summit Japan 
  Another big announcement out of the Open Source Summit Japan - Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has become a Gold Member of the LF, expanding industry participation in open source development across embedded systems, industrial automation, and next‑gen connectivity.
  • Read more about this announcement in our press release here. 

Also this month:

• The LF announced the launch of the Open Robust Compartmentalization Alliance (ORCA), a first-of-its-kind global coalition to address the growing impact of cyber threats
• openIDL released the first-ever free and open production-ready open insurance data standard
• Automotive Grade Linux introduced the SoDeV Reference Platform
• A new LF study for the Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC)  finds that confidential computing is emerging as a core requirement for secure AI and data collaboration
• The FinOps Foundation announced the launch of FOCUS 1.3 (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification) 
• Nokia joined the SONiC Foundation as a Premier Member
• The Xen Project announced the release of Xen 4.21, delivering virtualization enhancements for maintainability, performance, and security to cloud and server workloads
• The AgStack Foundation announced a strategic collaboration to embed OpenAgri’s portfolio of software into AgStack’s digital infrastructure ecosystem

What’s Next?

• Explore the Agentic AI Foundation projects on GitHub and get involved with MCP, goose, and AGENTS.md as they define the future of interoperable AI agents.
• Download the full State of Open Source Japan 2025 report and share insights with your regional or global teams.
• Mark your calendar for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU (March 2026, Amsterdam) — registration is now open.

>> Read on for even more news, research, and opportunities from across the Linux Foundation.

Over the past several years, LF Research has had the privilege of studying open source adoption across regions and industries worldwide. What consistently stands out about Japan is not hesitation, but intentionality. Japanese organizations are thoughtful, exacting, and deeply pragmatic in how they adopt technology, and our latest report, The State of Open Source Japan 2025, shows that this approach is paying off in measurable business value, even as important gaps remain. Last week in Tokyo I had the opportunity to share these findings with the attendees of Open Source Summit Japan, AI_Dev, and Automotive Linux Summit. Here are a few of the highlights for those who couldn’t join us in person. 

This blog was first published on Nov 26, 2025 at https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2025/11/the-state-of-open-source-software-in-2025.html and repurposed here with consent from the author. 

Open source and open collaboration communities face ongoing threats from “non-practicing entities” (NPEs, also sometimes called “patent trolls”). The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed new procedural rule changes that would benefit NPEs, by making it harder to defend against NPEs who assert weak patents. 

Artificial intelligence is reshaping economic systems at a pace we have rarely seen in modern technological history. Every sector—from finance to healthcare to manufacturing—is scrambling to understand how to harness AI safely, efficiently, and competitively. Yet amid the excitement, a crucial part of the story has been missing. Specifically, understanding the role that open models play in the AI economy, and how much value is being left on the table when organizations overlook open alternatives, are two topics requiring a closer look.

Welcome to the November 2025 edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter.

As we move toward year‑end, open source activity at the Linux Foundation (LF) remains at full throttle. In the past month, we welcomed major new projects, strengthened our AI‑and‑infrastructure portfolio, and reinforced our global collaboration model across security, research, and innovation. A huge thank you to all contributors, maintainers, members and staff who keep this momentum going!

Here are more of this month’s highlights:

• Valkey 9.0 Delivers Next‑Gen Performance at Scale
  The open‑source key‑value database project announced version 9.0 this month. This release introduces atomic slot migration, multiple databases in cluster mode, hash‑field expiration, and benchmarks showing support for over 1 billion requests per second across 2,000 nodes. 
  
  • Read more about the latest version of Valkey in Diginomica
• Fluxnova Launches Under FINOS to Orchestrate Financial Workflows
  The Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) announced Fluxnova in partnership with Fidelity Investments, NatWest Group, Bank of Montreal, Deutsche Bank and Capital One. Fluxnova, a fork of Camunda 7, is an open orchestration platform enabling audit‑ready workflows, visual process models and process traceability in heavily regulated financial services environments.
  • Read more about what makes this platform so critical to the ecosystem in the SD Times
• Overture Maps Foundation Names New Executive Director and Lands on Fast Company’s 2025 Next Big Things in Tech List
  William Mortenson has joined the Overture Maps Foundation as its new Executive Director. Mortenson brings more than 25 years of geospatial leadership and begins guiding Overture’s next phase of open map‑data growth, interoperability and adoption. The project also saw major industry recognition this month, landing a spot on the coveted ‘2025 Next Big Things in Tech’ list by Fast Company.
  • Read more about the appointment and industry recognition on the Overture Maps site.
• PyTorch Foundation Welcomes “Ray” to Deliver a Unified Open Source AI Compute Stack
  The PyTorch Foundation announced its latest hosted project: Ray, a widely adopted distributed computing framework that enables scaling AI workloads from a single machine to thousands of nodes. Ray now joins PyTorch and vLLM under the PyTorch Foundation umbrella, reinforcing the open‑source AI stack.
  • More on the project’s contribution to the LF in The New Stack and Forbes
• Major Infrastructure & Edge Release: StarlingX 11.0
  The open‑source cloud infrastructure project hosted by the Open Infrastructure Foundation released version 11.0, bringing enhanced edge‑security, IPv4‑exhaustion mitigation, IPsec pod‑to‑pod encryption and stronger rollback support for complex multi‑cluster deployments.
  • Read more about the new feature and optimization updates in Network World

What’s Next?

• Visit the Ray, Valkey, and Fluxnova GitHub repositories to explore updates and join the community.
• Review the StarlingX 11.0 release notes and see what's new for edge‑cloud ops.

>> Read on for more news, research, and opportunities from across the Linux Foundation.

The recent GOSIM AI Vision Forum in Hangzhou crystallized the central paradox of artificial intelligence: how to harness its immense potential while mitigating its considerable risks. AI is already augmenting our capacity for knowledge work by simplifying discovery, synthesis, and translation, as well as automating routine tasks. This automation frees individuals to engage in more meaningful and creative endeavors. Yet, these advancements are shadowed by urgent challenges, including equitable access, value-aligned governance, and protecting our social fabric from harm. As Dr. Michael Yuan highlights in the foreword of the recent Linux Foundation report Global Cooperation for Human-Centered AI, aligning AI with human values is crucial, but equally important is preparing humans to collaborate effectively with AI—a shift that requires us to evolve our fundamental understanding of work, education, and creativity.

In August, I had the honour of attending the APEC 2025 Global Digital and AI Forum’s AI & Digital Ministerial Meeting in Incheon, South Korea. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to present findings from the first phase of our research in collaboration with Meta, and to join a group of esteemed panelists discussing the numerous pathways for open source AI to transform the region’s 21 member states in different capacities.

This week in New York City at the Open Source in Finance Forum we marked an exciting milestone. This is the fifth consecutive year that Linux Foundation Research and FINOS have collaborated on the State of Open Source in Financial Services Report, and the insights from this year's study are not only impactful for the financial services sector at large, they extend far beyond it. 

Welcome to the October 2025 edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter.

Autumn is upon us and open source innovation shows no signs of slowing. Over the past month, the Linux Foundation welcomed new projects, celebrated major project milestones, and advanced our mission of enabling open collaboration across industries. Here are more of this month’s highlights:

• React Foundation Launches Under the Linux Foundation
  The Linux Foundation announced the formation of the React Foundation, a new home for React, React Native, and supporting projects to thrive under neutral, open governance. Contributed by Meta and backed by industry leaders, the foundation aims to support the long-term sustainability of one of the world’s most popular front-end frameworks.
  • Read more about the launch in the LF newsroom
  • See additional coverage in InfoWorld and SD Times
• Disney Research, NVIDIA, and Google DeepMind Contribute Newton Physics Engine
  A new project, Newton, has been contributed to the Linux Foundation by Disney Research, DeepMind, and NVIDIA. Newton is a GPU-accelerated physics engine designed for robotic simulation and reinforcement learning—bridging the gap between virtual training and real world deployment.
  • Read more about the project in the LF newsroom
• LF Decentralized Trust (LFDT) Celebrates One Year
  LF Decentralized Trust marked its one-year anniversary with key milestones, including new members, community growth, and the move of Hiero, the distributed ledger technology powering the Hedera network, to graduated project status. The initiative continues to drive forward open source solutions for tokenized assets, verifiable credentials, decentralized identity, and public trust.
  • Recap the progress in the LFDT blog
• What’s Next?
  • Visit React.dev, GitHub repositories for Newton, and Hiero to learn more and get involved.

Read on for more news, research, and opportunities from across the Linux Foundation.

>> PS - LF Europe Member Summit is right around the corner! Register now!