Summit on Open-Source Ecosystems

Program

Overview

SOSE 2026 will be organized around a series of facilitated conversations and activities designed to address key challenges for building the ecosystems that are critical for sustaining open-source assets and technologies. The discussion areas and illustrative topics below are preliminary and will continue to evolve as the program is developed.

Open Platforms, AI Agents, and the Future of Open Source

Possible topics include:

  • Distributed development and collaboration
  • The evolving role of AI agents in open-source ecosystems
  • Open, community-driven, and customizable hardware platforms
  • Programmable AI and edge-computing platforms
  • Hardware/software co-design for multimodal and AI-enabled systems
  • Extensible platforms that reduce vendor lock-in and enable experimentation
  • New socio-technical challenges and opportunities
  • Human–AI collaboration in development and maintenance

Protocols, Interoperability, Security, and Trustworthy Coordination

Possible topics include:

  • Interoperability and shared protocols across open-source platforms and ecosystems
  • Modular design and standard interfaces that enable components to be added, replaced, and reused
  • Open reference stacks, APIs, firmware, drivers, datasets, and benchmarks
  • Reproducibility and portability of research across institutions and platforms
  • Provenance and traceability
  • Software and hardware supply-chain integrity
  • Auditability of AI-generated and AI-mediated contributions
  • Authentication, authorization, and trustworthy coordination across heterogeneous environments
  • Security risks introduced or amplified by AI agents and increasingly programmable platforms

Governance, Licensing, Copyright, and Accountability

Possible topics include:

  • Open-source licensing in AI-mediated environments
  • Licensing and stewardship of open software, hardware, data, models, and other open-source assets
  • Copyright, attribution, and ownership
  • Community governance and decision-making models
  • Accountability for AI-generated or AI-mediated contributions
  • The role of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) and other ecosystem-support organizations
  • Enforcement and compliance considerations
  • Balancing automation with meaningful human participation

Sustainability and Ecosystem Growth

Possible topics include:

  • Strategies for enabling open-source projects and communities to thrive beyond individual grants or projects
  • Building a sense of belonging to sustain project health and encourage continuing participation
  • Sustaining partnerships and creating long-term revenue and funding models
  • Workforce development and pathways to broadening ecosystem participation
  • Incentives for users, contributors, maintainers, and other ecosystem participants
  • Community-driven security and design practices that support ecosystem resilience
  • Documentation, manufacturing, maintenance, and support for sustainable open hardware ecosystems