2024 Open Source Software Development Trend Forecast
The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools by the open source community is expected to continue to grow in 2024, although legal and ethical debates surrounding intellectual property and licensing issues are still underway.
The open source community will focus more on security, with the goal of finding better ways to maintain popular projects and ensuring long-term commitment from open source maintenance staff.
Enterprise support for the open source community is expected to grow, with more initiatives and sponsorships aimed at supporting open source creators such as GitHub’s Accelerator program and Codacy’s Pioneers program.
The surge in the company's internal open source project office (OSPO) is expected to continue in 2024 and beyond as they help ensure more efficient and lower risk open source strategies and protocols.
According to Open Logic's 2023 Open Source Report, 80% of the companies surveyed said they have increased their use of open source over the past year. As enterprises continue to increase their adoption of open source, the open source field will continue to grow thanks to their huge and focused community.
As always, new technologies and best practices for open source software (OSS) are emerging, leading the community to a new and exciting path. Here are some trends that you expect the open source ecosystem to focus more on in 2024.
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Fvergent adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning
In 2023, the software development community has accepted artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). A recent GitHub survey showed that 92% of developers use AI-powered coding assistants.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning tools can not only help coders; they are also used to assist any task that requires learning, problem solving and decision making.
Artificial intelligence adoption in open source is also growing rapidly and has become completely mainstream. We have seen Google use artificial intelligence for image and speech recognition tasks. Facebook also released an open source machine learning library called PyTorch.
The adoption and use of artificial intelligence is one aspect, and the other aspect is the legal and ethical issues brought about by this adoption. Open source software is at the forefront of many such debates, because most of the encoded data used for training machine learning models are open source projects.
This learning method challenges intellectual property and licensing issues. Should OSS creators using code used to train AI be compensated? Is it legal to train these tools on other people’s works?
We have seen that AI-powered image creators and writing tools have successfully avoided copyright issues. However, a class action lawsuit filed a lawsuit against GitHub, accusing their CoPilot AI tool of violating many open source licenses.
While the possibility of solving these legality and ethical issues regarding the use of AI technology will take a long time to resolve, it is hard to believe that these concerns can slow down the widespreadness of AI and machine learning tools in open source and other fields Interest and speed of adoption.
Focus more on safety
According to the Synopsys 2023 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis (OSSRA) report, 87% of the more than 1,700 code bases they scanned for the report include security and operational risk assessments. The report found that 89% of the code bases contain open source code that has not been updated for more than four years, and 91% contain components that have not been newly developed for at least two years.
Given that the zero-day critical vulnerability event of the Log4j library is still fresh in memory of all open source creators, the OSS community is expected to continue to emphasize the importance of security and privacy best practices in 2024.
Open source is everywhere. The 2022 OSSRA report shows that 97% of software contains some open source code. Open source code accounts for 78% of all reviewed codes in the report. More importantly, 81% of code bases containing open source code have at least one security vulnerability, with an average of five high-risk vulnerabilities.
Open source code is everywhere, permeating almost every key technology we rely on, making proper security and privacy even more important. When global networks use the same open source code, a vulnerability can cause countless systems around the world to crash.
However, the greatest advantage of open source is also its biggest obstacle. Why invest in something completely free?
According to a 2023 study by Tidelift, 60% of open source maintenance workers are "free enthusiasts". Only 13% describe themselves as professional maintenance personnel who make a living from this job.
The study also found that more than half of the maintenance personnel surveyed need to know about recent security plans such as the OSSF scorecard, the supply chain level of software architects (SLSA), and the NIST Security Software Development Framework (SSDF).
For security and feasibility, the priority for the open source community in 2024 and beyond must be to find better ways to maintain popular projects—that is, pay enough to open source maintenance personnel so that they can engage in long term This kind of work.
Enhanced corporate support
Tech companies (large and small) are increasingly aware of the importance of open source communities to their entire ecosystem. This awareness of the importance of open source has led to an increase in initiatives and sponsorships designed to support open source creators.
The most notable one is the Accelerator program launched by GitHub in April 2023. This 10-week program provides funding and guidance for selected open source projects.
Codacy, a code quality platform based in Lisbon, is doing something similar. They announced an open source creator scholarship program called Pioneers. The selected projects will receive a full year of monthly allowance, free tools, project promotion and guidance provided by numerous celebrity open source experts, including Evan You, creator of Vue.js framework.
The application deadline for the Pioneers program is at the end of September, and the candidates will be announced in mid-October.
Another recent example of open source sponsorship is the current project of the Rust Foundation, which provides grants to maintainers using the programming language, which has a very active open source ecosystem and community.
The number of companies with open source project offices
Open Source Project Office (OSPO) is a cross-functional team within the company responsible for how the company uses open source. They develop strategies and policies to ensure their companies’ open source strategies and protocols are more efficient and less risky.
Operation is expected to surge further in 2024 and beyond. According to GitHub 2022 Octoverse report, 30% of Fortune 100 companies have OSPOs. Research by the Linux Foundation also found that while OSPO adoption is still the most common among tech companies, we have also seen an increase in adoption rates in other industries such as education and the public sector.
OSPO can play an important role in helping developers, technicians, procurement and legal teams select and implement the right open source tools. OSPO can also help educate employees and create a culture of transparency and responsibility when building an internal tool stack.
Don't be surprised in 2024 if more companies create roles and positions such as Chief Open Source Officer to lead OSPOs and work with CTOs to create more efficient, safer, and more sustainable open source policies for their companies, don't be surprised .
FAQs about open source trends (FAQs)
The field of open source software is constantly developing. One of the latest trends is the increasing adoption of open source software by enterprises. Companies are increasingly aware of the advantages of open source software, such as cost-effectiveness, flexibility and the ability to customize software to their specific needs. Another trend is that open source software is becoming more and more popular in cloud computing. As more businesses move their businesses to the cloud, they are turning to open source solutions to help manage their cloud-based systems. In addition, the trend of using open source software is growing in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
Open source software is having a profound impact on the technology industry. It drives innovation by allowing developers to collaborate and share ideas, leading to the creation of new technologies and solutions. Open source software also helps democratize the tech industry and enable high-quality software to be accessed by everyone, regardless of their financial resources. Furthermore, it is changing the business model of tech companies as they are now more focused on serving and supporting open source software than selling proprietary software.
There are many benefits to using open source software. One of the main advantages is cost-effectiveness. Open source software is often used for free, which can save businesses a lot of money. Another benefit is flexibility. With open source software, users are free to modify and customize the software to meet their specific needs. Additionally, open source software is often safer than proprietary software because it is often reviewed and improved by the developer community.
While open source software offers many benefits, it also presents some potential challenges. One of the main challenges is the lack of customer support. Unlike proprietary software, open source software does not have a dedicated customer support team. This means that users may need to rely on community forums or hire external consultants to seek help. Another challenge is that open source software may not be user-friendly as proprietary software, which makes it difficult for non-technical users to use.
There are many ways to contribute to open source projects. One of the most common ways is to contribute code. If you are a developer, you can contribute by fixing bugs, adding new features, or improving software performance. However, you don't have to be a developer to contribute. You can also contribute by reporting bugs, writing documentation, designing user interfaces, or helping with marketing and promotion efforts. To get started, you can find an open source project that interests you and contact the project maintenance staff to find out how you can help.
The future of open source software looks promising. As more businesses recognize the benefits of open source software, its adoption may continue to grow. Additionally, as more people understand open source and start contributing to open source projects, the quality and diversity of open source software may be improved. In addition, with the rise of technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, many exciting new opportunities may emerge in open source software in the future.
Open source software and proprietary software have their own advantages and disadvantages. Open source software is often more flexible and cost-effective than proprietary software. It allows users to modify and customize the software to meet their specific needs. However, it may not be as user-friendly as proprietary software and does not have dedicated customer support. On the other hand, proprietary software often comes with customer support and may be more user-friendly, but it is often more expensive and less flexible than open source software.
Open source software plays a crucial role in cloud computing. Many technologies that support cloud computing, such as Linux operating systems, Apache Web servers, and MySQL databases, are open source. Open source software allows cloud providers to customize their services to meet the specific needs of their customers. It also helps ensure the security and reliability of the cloud, as the open source community regularly reviews and improves the software.
Open source software supports innovation by promoting collaboration and sharing of ideas. Because the source code is available for free, developers can leverage each other’s work to create new technologies and solutions. Open source software also encourages experimentation, as developers are free to modify the software and try new ideas without worrying about infringement of proprietary rights.
Open source software plays a key role in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Many of the most popular AI and machine learning frameworks, such as TensorFlow and PyTorch, are open source. These frameworks allow researchers and developers to collaborate and share their work, thus accelerating the pace of innovation in the field. Furthermore, by providing these tools for free, open source software is helping democratize AI and machine learning, enabling these technologies to be used by a wider range of people and organizations.
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