Celebrating 20 Years of Open Innovation!
This month’s edition of INSIDER explores how Open Source is driving global progress, from groundbreaking AI advancements to energy-efficient research and transforming the public sector. Plus, don’t miss “The Patent Lawyer” magazine interview with Peter Toto from Sony and their long standing role with OIN.
Table of Contents
AROUND THE WORLD
Carnegie Mellon University is leading research into how Open Source AI models can reduce energy consumption. Their work could shape future policy & spark greener innovations like Meta’s open-weight models that have already driven energy-efficient techniques like QLoRA.
At China’s International Supply Chain Expo, Nvidia founder & CEO Jensen Huang praised the country’s Open Source AI as a “catalyst for global progress.” The company has long supported the Open Source ecosystem, contributing to projects like Docker, Kubernetes, and the Linux Kernel — all protected under OIN’s exclusive Linux System definition.
The 3rd largest city in France, Lyons’ government is changing to Open Source, using OnlyOffice for productivity tasks, Linux as the Operating System (OS) & PostgreSQL for database management — Linux and PostgreSQL both covered with patent protection for OIN members.
Meet Sirius — a smart, shape-shifting robot dog for $699 developed by Hengbot. The AI-powered open source pup responds to voice, gestures & visual cues, offers 2 hours of standby time & a visual drag-and-drop interface lets owners program custom dances, teach tricks & tweak behavior. Plus, swappable personas let Sirius switch between breeds like Husky, Corgi, or Border Collie to match your vibe.
French startup Mistral AI — known for its assistant Le Chat — just launched Voxral, its 1st Open Source voice model. As conversational AI shifts toward speech as a primary interface, Voxral provides an alternative to Open Source systems like ChatGPT.
NEW MEMBERS
We’re excited to announce AB Volvo — Aktiebolaget Volvo / Volvo Trucks and part of the Volvo Group has joined OIN. Volvo Car Corporation — a separate entity — has been an OIN member since April 2018. Volvo offers more than trucks. It manufactures buses, construction equipment, power solutions for marine & industrial applications, as well as provides EV & autonomous solutions. Join us in welcoming AB Volvo to our community.
CPAC Systems AB is a global leader in advanced control systems, embedded vessel & commercial vehicle technologies. It specializes in embedded control & automation solutions for marine, construction, agriculture & commercial vehicle industries, focusing on electromobility, autonomous driving & situational awareness.
Jack Lockton founded Lockton in 1966 — a family-owned American company that provides insurance, risk management & employee benefits from over 100 worldwide offices. It’s the world’s largest privately held insurance brokerage firm with $4 billion in revenue & the 10th largest overall.
Join us in welcoming the Midea Group as a new community member. The electrical appliance manufacturer advances smart home technologies with energy efficient solutions.
MEMBER NEWS
It’s been 20 years since IBM/RedHat, Philips, NEC, Sony & SUSE, (joined later by Google & Toyota) established OIN. Patent Lawyer magazine publishes a one-on-one interview with Peter Toto, SVP & IP Counsel at Sony, as well as a dive into the Consumer Electronics industry’s evolution to relying on Open Source.
Jack Dorsey — an American entrepreneur, computer programmer, co-founder of Twitter & chairperson of Block — has always been interested in Open Source protocols. Now, he’s launching a new development collective called “and Other Stuff,” a nonprofit he is backing with $10 million to work on Open Source projects, including some that could become consumer social media apps & app-development tools. Developers are using Nostr — an Open Source program for decentralized message transmission — which Dorsey also backed with $250,000 worth of bitcoin.
Chinese tech firms are focusing on Open Source AI models as part of its broader efforts to deliver the technology to more businesses, developers & industries. OIN members Alibaba & Baidu are in the race.
Uber joins American EV maker Lucid & robotics company Nuro in a multi-million deal. They plan to deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis worldwide over the next 6 years, starting in the U.S. in 2026.
UPCOMING EVENTS
August
- The AI_dev Open Source GenAI & ML Summit will be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 28th-29th.
October
- The LF Energy Summit is coming to North America for the 1st time October 3rd in Montreal, Canada focusing on the energy transition acceleration through Open Source.
- We’re a proud sponsor of All Things Open 2025 which takes place October 12-14th in downtown Raleigh, NC. The conferences lucky year #13 expects more than 5,000 technologists from all over the world. Ticket Special Offer 1: Free Admission (first come, first serve) or Ticket Special Offer 2: 20% Off Registration
- The Open Source in Finance Forum kicks off Oct 21st in New York, NY.
- The Open Source AI / ML community is coming together at the PyTorch Conference in San Francisco, CA, October 22–23rd.
November
- Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) flagship conference KubeCon / Cloud NativeCon North America will be held in Atlanta, GA, November 10-13th.