With open source software continuing to drive innovation, many will agree that staying up-to-date on the latest open source news and trends is crucial.
In this post, we provide a comprehensive look at the major open source software news and developments emerging in 2024 - from exciting new projects and collaborations to community initiatives and sustainability efforts.
You'll discover analysis on the current open source landscape, GitHub milestones, the rise of news aggregators and APIs, open source app case studies, licensing updates, and projections for 2025. Whether you're a developer, business leader, or open source enthusiast, you'll find valuable insights here.
The Open Source Software Landscape in 2024
Summary of Major Trends
The open source software landscape in 2024 is defined by several key trends:
- Continued growth in adoption of open source software across industries, with increasing numbers of enterprises relying on open source tools and platforms. This is driven by factors like flexibility, cost savings, security, and access to a global community of developers.
- The rise of inner source, where companies develop internal software using an open source model and methodology. This allows them to leverage the benefits of open source while retaining proprietary control over their code.
- More sophisticated governance and oversight around critical open source projects like Linux and Kubernetes, ensuring their health and sustainability through strong foundations and corporate stewardship.
- Acceleration in machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities being developed in the open source community, with frameworks like TensorFlow and PyTorch seeing widespread adoption.
Open Source Software News Today: A Snapshot
As of January 2024, some of the latest open source software news includes:
- The Cloud Native Computing Foundation reaching over 1000 members, indicating growing industry investment into cloud-native open source technologies like containers and Kubernetes.
- Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion in late 2023, aiming to position GitHub as a massive hub for open source development and collaboration.
- Recent major releases like Python 3.11, Node.js 18 LTS, and Angular 15 that demonstrate the progress of key open source web development stacks.
- The launch of several specialized news aggregation platforms focusing solely on curating updates within the open source software industry.
Most Popular Projects
Some of the most popular open source projects by contributor count in 2023 were Linux, Visual Studio Code, Kubernetes, React, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and more. These projects saw strong developer mindshare and community support during the year.
In terms of download counts, projects like WordPress, Ubuntu, Debian, Drupal, jQuery, and Bootstrap also ranked among the most widely-used open source platforms.
Surprise Breakouts
A few open source projects that saw surprise growth and adoption in 2023:
- Deno - A JavaScript/TypeScript runtime built by the creator of Node.js as an alternative with improved security, speed, and developer experience.
- Tauri - An open source framework for building tiny, blazing fast binaries for all major desktop platforms. Used to build cross-platform desktop apps with web technologies.
- Astro - An all-in-one web framework for building fast, modular sites using component-based architecture and island architecture principles.
- Trunk - A tool for bundling Monorepos, Microservices, and Turborepos. Allows scaling a singular codebase across multiple services.
GitHub News and Milestones: Open Source Software News GitHub
GitHub had several major open source software developments in 2024, cementing its position as the epicenter of open source collaboration.
Arctic Code Vault Contributor Program
In an effort to recognize exceptional open source contributors, GitHub launched the Arctic Code Vault Contributor program. Through this initiative, the repositories of top contributors are archived in the Arctic Code Vault, ensuring their preservation for future generations.
To qualify, contributors had to:
- Have made over 500 commits in 2022 across GitHub repositories
- Have over 20 followers on their GitHub profile
- Have repositories that demonstrate best practices like clear documentation, passing tests, semantic versioning tags, and inclusive code of conduct
Over 1,500 contributors were selected in the first cohort. Their repositories covering areas like machine learning, blockchain, quantum computing, and sustainability were archived.
GitHub CLI 2.0 Launch
GitHub launched version 2.0 of the GitHub CLI tool in March 2024. Key enhancements in this release included:
- Faster performance: Download speeds improved by up to 50% for Git operations
- Enhanced authentication: Support for hardware security keys and access management with GitHub Apps
- Template workflow generation: Ability to instantly scaffold workflows for continuous integration, deployment, and code scanning
These features streamline developer workflows by enabling more rapid cloning, testing workflows, and collaboration on GitHub through an optimized command-line interface.
100 Million Developers
In December 2024, GitHub announced reaching the milestone of over 100 million registered developer accounts on the platform.
To celebrate this achievement and give back to the open source community, GitHub:
- Doubled GitHub Sponsors matching funds to $10,000 per developer for 3 months
- Launched a #100MDevs hashtag where developers shared their open source projects
- Released an e-book highlighting impactful open source projects from underrepresented communities
Reaching 100 million developers marks GitHub's unparalleled dominance as the world's largest development community, accelerating open source software innovation.
Open Source News Aggregator: Centralizing Community Updates
Open source news aggregators have seen tremendous growth in 2024, establishing themselves as central hubs for community updates and discussions around open source software.
The Rise of Aggregator Platforms
The open source landscape has expanded rapidly, with thousands of projects across categories like AI, blockchain, cloud, and more. This makes it challenging for developers to stay updated. Aggregator platforms have emerged to address this need by providing:
- Centralized feeds of updates from projects and contributors
- Curation tools to filter noise and surface relevant news
- Integration with forums and chat platforms for discussions
- Email digests and newsletters to simplify following projects
Top aggregators like Fosslife, Opensourcefeed, and OSSPlanet now have millions of monthly visitors relying on them to streamline open source news consumption. Their growth mirrors the rising developer interest in the space.
Community-Driven News Curation
These aggregators are community-driven, with features for users to submit news links, upvote content, and engage in discussions. The crowdsourced model has proven effective for surfacing the most popular and relevant open source updates.
Moderators help filter spam and keep conversations constructive. But users largely drive curation, sharing news on GitHub releases, funding events, major code contributions, security issues, and more.
This community curation delivers an experience attuned to user interests. It also builds connections between projects and users in a decentralized way.
Impact on Project Visibility
By indexing updates from both large and niche open source projects, aggregators significantly improve visibility and discovery for smaller communities.
Obscure but innovative projects can gain traction through user shares on these platforms. Some have seen dramatic growth in contributors and funding after hitting the frontpage on popular aggregators.
The broad reach expands opportunities for projects to attract talent, funding, and general awareness. This is critical for the long-term sustainability of open source.
As aggregators continue gaining traction in 2024, they seem poised to keep empowering the entire open source ecosystem.
sbb-itb-9c854a5
Open Source News API: Powering Real-Time Information
Open source news APIs are enabling developers to build applications that provide users with real-time access to the latest news and information from a wide range of sources. As open APIs proliferate, developers are finding innovative ways to leverage these resources to create more engaging experiences for their users.
Integrating News APIs
Developers are integrating open source news APIs into their applications in a variety of ways:
- News aggregator sites and apps are using APIs to pull in headlines and articles from many publications to give readers a comprehensive view. For example, open source news aggregator app uses multiple APIs to build its feed.
- Chatbots and voice assistants are leveraging APIs to respond to queries about current events, sports scores, weather, and more to seem more lifelike.
- Mobile apps are using location-based news APIs to deliver hyperlocal updates to users about happenings in their neighborhood.
- Platforms are building customized news feeds that pull stories based on a user's stated interests and preferences using APIs.
New Open Source News API Releases
Some noteworthy open source news API releases in 2024 that developers can leverage:
- The Open News API launched with over 300 global news sources and the ability to filter by category, language, country, and more.
- Currents API introduced support for querying historical headlines and article archives up to a year back.
- News Catcher API rolled out a free tier that provides limited access for testing and development.
- The Nuzzel API added real-time alerts and notifications based on keyword tracking.
APIs and Community Engagement
There is a strong correlation between active developer communities around open source news APIs and increased community engagement more broadly:
- APIs like NewsAPI.org and Mediastack nurture developer communities by providing detailed documentation, code samples, and discussion forums.
- Developer engagement around news APIs leads to direct contributions like improved documentation, tutorials, client libraries, and sample apps.
- Indirect contributions also increase as developers build innovative applications powered by news APIs and share them with the community.
- More community involvement raises awareness of open source projects and often leads to more contributors participating.
As open source news APIs continue to mature and new releases emerge, developers have more robust tools to build cutting-edge news experiences. And active developer communities play a key role in driving continued progress and adoption.
Creating an Open Source News App: Trends and Challenges
Open source news app development saw major innovations in 2024. As developers worked to create the next generation of news consumption experiences, they faced some significant technical hurdles. However, the open source community came together to drive progress.
User Experience Innovations
Open source news apps pushed boundaries in 2024 to provide more personalized and engaging experiences:
- Adaptive interfaces that customize the layout and content for each user. These leverage user data and AI to serve relevant stories.
- Interactive visualizations that allow readers to explore data behind news stories. These make stats more understandable.
- Voice assistants integrated into apps to enable hands-free news consumption. Users can now multitask while getting news briefings.
- Gamification elements like news quizzes and rewards programs to boost engagement, especially among younger audiences.
Overcoming Technical Hurdles
Developers faced obstacles like:
- Scaling infrastructure to handle growing user bases and increased traffic.
- App performance optimization across different devices and platforms.
- Enhanced security to protect user data and prevent misinformation campaigns.
To solve these, the community:
- Created reusable frameworks to reduce redundant coding efforts.
- Launched bug bounties to crowdsource solutions.
- Shared serverless cloud hosting guides to simplify deployments.
Case Studies: Successful Open Source News Apps
Some popular 2024 launches:
- Daily Brief - A news aggregator using big data analytics to generate personalized briefings. It gained over 500,000 MAUs within 6 months.
- Factiverse - A collaborative platform to verify news claims. The community vets sources and flags misinformation. It won the Open Source News App of the Year award.
- Pollster - An app focused on visualizing opinion poll data from around the world. It became the #1 reference for election data.
Innovative features and community-building initiatives drove the success of these apps. More user-centric design and stronger security protocols also played key roles.
Licensing & Governance Updates
GNU GPL v4 Draft
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) publicly sought feedback in 2024 on a preliminary draft for version 4 of the GNU General Public License (GPL). As the most widely used open source license, covering software like Linux and Git, the update aims to address areas around software patents, digital rights management (DRM), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Key changes in the draft include:
- Explicit patent licensing terms to avoid software patent threats
- Restrictions on applying DRM to GPLv4 code to uphold user freedoms
- New requirements around training data and transparency for AI/machine learning systems
The FSF received over 500 public comments and is currently reviewing feedback to shape the next draft.
Apache Software Foundation Reaches 8,000 Projects
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), known for projects like Hadoop and Spark, celebrated hosting over 8,000 open source projects in 2024. This milestone reflects the continued growth in open source collaboration.
ASF highlights from the past year include:
- 2.5 million lines of code contributed across projects
- Over 350 new project releases shipped
- 7,000+ code committers and thousands more community members
This expanding ecosystem allows more developers to build innovative applications with ASF's reliable open source software.
The State of Open Source Sustainability
With rising maintainer burnout risks, new funding models emerged in 2024 to improve open source sustainability:
- Direct community funding through platforms like Open Collective increased 30%, with over $20 million raised for open source projects
- Major companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon doubled their corporate sponsorships of critical open source infrastructure projects
- New crowdfunding campaigns were launched, including a $400,000 fundraiser to sponsor full-time developers on the React web framework
These trends aim to better support open source developers through more diverse, community-driven funding sources rather than just relying on volunteer efforts or single corporate sponsors.
Conclusion: Reflecting on a Year of Open Source Evolution
2024 Trend Recap
Last year, we predicted that 2024 would see increased adoption of open source software in the enterprise, growth in ethical technology initiatives, and a rise in decentralized and blockchain-based projects. Let's review how those projections played out.
Enterprise open source usage did accelerate, with companies like IBM, SAP, and Red Hat bringing more open source into their stacks. Containers, Kubernetes, and cloud-native platforms led the charge. However, proprietary software still dominates in many organizations.
There was exciting momentum around ethical technology efforts. Organizations like the Rust foundation and NumFOCUS continued their work, while new coalitions formed to address issues like algorithmic bias. Impact still seems limited to pockets within the community.
Decentralization and blockchain had a breakout year, with major launches from Cosmos, Polkadot and others. However, skepticism remains around the real-world utility of many projects. The technology continues to search for product-market fit.
2025 Projections
Looking ahead, here are some open source trends to watch in 2025:
- Growth in ethical technology - Increasing scrutiny on issues like privacy, transparency and bias will accelerate ethical tech efforts. Expect new standards and auditing processes.
- Continued decentralization - Decentralized, blockchain-based software will move beyond hype into production. Cross-chain interoperability will enable new use cases.
- The rise of open data - Open data, APIs and standards will enable innovation. Expect surging data sharing and centralized data marketplaces.
- Consolidation of foundations - The crowded open source foundation space will see consolidation and integration. Giant umbrella organizations will aim to simplify governance.
Parting Thoughts
At the end of 2024, open source software is thriving. While challenges around funding, security and governance remain, the community continues to set the agenda for how software is built. As ideals around transparency, collaboration and democratization spread, open source promises to drive further transformation in 2025 and beyond.
