Three highlights from Open Source Summit Europe 2023
The Open Source Summit Europe is a conference organized by the Linux Foundation with the goal of bringing together Open Source developers, technologists and community leaders to collaborate, share information, solve problems and gain knowledge. Last week, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was present at this event, driving three key efforts:
- the Open Source AI discussion
- the launch of Opensource.net
- the future of ClearlyDefined.
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How The OSI Checks If New Licenses Comply With The Open Source Definition
Earlier this month, we announced completion of the project to review the list of Approved Licenses. The Open Source community needs a resource to confidently and easily identify OSI-approved licenses, and now we have it. This approval registry offers a comprehensive and authoritative listing of all licenses so organizations know that the license they choose for their project allows their software to be freely used, modified, shared and monetized in compliance with the Open Source Definition. But how do we check the compliance of new licenses with the Open Source Definition? The License Review Working Group was formed to examine ways to improve the license review process, with the stated purpose of evaluating or reevaluating:
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Immunization Information System Interoperability… What We’ve Learned Along the Way
The IZ Gateway initiative (IZG) sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is up and running. HLN has helped its Immunization Information System (IIS) clients connect to other IIS via the IZ Gateway from planning through testing and go-live. As anticipated, this electronic data exchange has resulted in an increase in record completeness for patient doses received in one jurisdiction, while living in another. Testing between our clients and other IISs, referred to as IIS-IIS pairings, has spurred productive inter-jurisdictional interoperability discussions, while also highlighting nuances in platform configuration. A few of these nuances are provided below.
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2nd Deep Dive Event: Defining Open Source Artificial Intelligence
Open Source Initiative (OSI), the non-profit corporation that educates about and advocates for the importance of non-proprietary software, is hosting its 2nd Deep Dive: AI event, this one focused on Defining Open Source AI. The goal is to work toward establishing a clear and defendable definition of “Open Source AI.” OSI is bringing together global experts to establish a shared set of principles that can recreate a permissionless, pragmatic and simplified collaboration for AI practitioners, similar to what the Open Source Definition has done. OSI is the steward of the Open Source Definition, which serves as the foundation of the modern software ecosystem, outlining the distribution terms of Open Source software. OSI also maintains a list of OSI Approved Licenses that have become a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize Open Source cooperation.
“It’s time to define what ‘open’ means in AI before it is defined by accident,” said Stefano Maffulli, executive director of OSI. “This milestone project is essential right now. Policymakers, re-users and modifiers are confused, and developers aren’t clear on data sharing and transparency. A permission structure is needed to help fight open washing.”
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GraphQLConf 2023
The GraphQL Foundation, dedicated to promoting widespread adoption and accelerating development of the surrounding ecosystem is holding their inaugural conference in the San Francisco Bay area, CA, September 19-21, 2023. GraphQLConf 2023 brings together the creators of some of the most important technologies behind GraphQL. Speakers from a wide range of organizations working with GraphQL at enterprise scale will share their experience, insights and knowledge as they discuss the challenges facing the growing GraphQL ecosystem. The program was developed by a community-led committee, which selected over 60 sessions after an open CFP that produced a large and diverse set of submissions that span topics from technical challenges and deep dives to end-user stories and introductory content.
“This event is a truly special moment for the GraphQL community,” said Lee Byron, Co-creator of GraphQL and Executive Director of the GraphQL Foundation. “GraphQLConf is the only vendor-agnostic, community-focused conference for developers. We’re thrilled to bring everyone together and celebrate big milestones for our projects and the spec.”
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To Trust Artificial Intelligence, It Must Be Open And Transparent. Period.
Machine learning has been around for a long time. But in late 2022, recent advancements in deep learning and large language models started to change the game and come into the public eye. And people started thinking, “We love Open Source software, so, let’s have Open Source AI, too.” But what is Open Source AI? And the answer is: we don’t know yet. Machine learning models are not software. Software is written by humans, like me. Machine learning models are trained; they learn on their own automatically, based on the input data provided by humans. When programmers want to fix a computer program, they know what they need: the source code. But if you want to fix a model, you need a lot more: software to train it, data to train it, a plan for training it, and so forth. It is much more complex. And reproducing it exactly ranges from difficult to nearly impossible.
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Understanding the Cyber Resilience Act: What Everyone involved in Open Source Development Should Know
The European Union is making big changes to cybersecurity requirements with its proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). You may have heard about the CRA’s potential impact on the open source ecosystem. But what does the Cyber Resilience Act mean for you? This post is an introduction to the Act and explains how it may affect the open source maintainers and developer community. Note that this post is based on a draft of the CRA from September 15, 2022. The Act is still in a draft stage and getting feedback, and its provisions may differ before it is passed into law. The Cyber Resilience Act was introduced by the European Parliament in September 2022. Its purpose is to establish cybersecurity requirements for devices and software marketed in the EU. Everybody who places digital products in the EU market will be responsible for additional obligations around reporting and compliance, such as fixing discovered vulnerabilities, providing software updates, and auditing and certifying the products.
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GHCon2023
GHCon is an annual conference that brings together enthusiasts and developers of the Free/Libre Health & Hospital Information System. During the 2-day conference, you’ll have the opportunity to attend the different thematic sessions and free workshops and share experiences and implementation cases and, of course, network with GNU Health community members from around the world!
Day 1 is registration day and IWEEE, the International Workshop on eHealth in Emerging economies. IWEEE is about Social Medicine, a space to give voice to the voiceless, share the experiences from different organizations around the World, and try to find ways to improve the lives of the underprivileged.
Day 2 is dedicated exclusively to GNU Health. In the thematic talks, we will discuss topics such as the upcoming features, standards, security, mobile applications, and implementation cases. At GNU Solidario, we will be honored to have you among us. We are counting on your active participation to get the most out of the conference. Most importantly, we want you to have fun, feel at home, and enjoy being part of the GNU Health community!
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Diverse Open Source Uses Highlight Need For Precision In Cyber Resilience Act
As the European Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is entering into the final legislative phase, it still has some needs arising from framing by the Commission or Parliament that result in breakage no matter how issues within its scope are “fixed”. Here’s a short list to help the co-legislators understand the engagement from the Open Source community...OSI and the experts with whom they engage are not trying to get all of Open Source out of scope as maximalist lobbyists do for other aspects of technology. An exclusion from the regulation for Open Source software per se would open a significant loophole for openwashing. But the development of Open Source software in the open needs to be excluded from scope just as the development of software in private is. Our goal in engaging is just to prevent unintentional breakage while largely embracing the new regulation.
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Driving The Global Conversation About “Open Source Artificial Intelligence”
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) continues the work of exploring complexities surrounding the development and use of artificial intelligence in Deep Dive: AI – Defining Open Source AI, with the goal of collaboratively establishing a clear and defensible definition of “Open Source AI.” OSI is bringing together global experts to establish a shared set of principles that can recreate a permissionless, pragmatic and simplified collaboration for AI practitioners, similar to what the Open Source Definition has done.
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