 Hi, this is Yozap Limbati and we're back to our popular prediction video series. And today we have with us once again, Hillary Carter, SVP of Research and Communications at the Linux Foundation. Hillary, it's great to have you back on the show. Thank you, Swap. It's great to be back again. Of course, we are going to talk about your predictions. But before we go there, I would like to talk a bit about the Linux Foundation. The world has changed a lot around us. We kind of live in a software-driven open source centric world. Talk a bit about the role of Linux Foundation in this world. Yeah, thank you. The world has changed. If we look back to where we were at the beginning of 2023, it's a new, it's a different kind of world. We have a lot of uncertainty. We have increasingly high interest rates. We have a new conflict in the Middle East. We have supply chain disruptions in the Red Sea resulting from that conflict, ongoing war in Ukraine. It is a very uncertain time. And it has been challenging for the ecosystem. And open sources is no exception. Our members face challenges. Our politicians face challenges. And what we can do is be a resource to try to help solve some of these challenges. But it is a challenging world we live in today. And if you look at some of these challenges, whether it's regulations like CRS or companies changing license in terms and to which Linux Foundation and the community responded with Open Tofu, talk a bit about in general, what do you see are, is 2024 going to get better for open source or there will be new challenges? In general, what do you see? Where are we heading in terms of open source in 2024? I think some of the challenges that we went through in 2023 are net beneficial to open source for 2024. You mentioned the Open Tofu example. And I think what we were able to convey in that process of creating Open Tofu is disseminating the value proposition around open governance and license considerations that trusted technologies are often found where governance is truly open. And that has helped decision making. I think that's been an important clarification that can help accelerate innovation, that we know more about what the risks are when open technologies are not truly openly governed. And I think we're in a better place today having come through those challenges of last year. Similarly, Generative AI exploded onto the scene in December of 2022. And throughout the year, we have had, I think, accelerating points of view around the benefits of open, certainly open Generative AI, open source language models that create trust. And I think those are important conversations that needed to take place. And I think the sentiment is moving in the favor of open where Generative AI is concerned. I think that's really positive. That's really exciting. So I think we're full steam ahead based on having overcome some challenges in 2023. Now we can get down to work. Now let's talk about public sector, the impact of political word on open source. We are kind of seeing the emergence of technonationalism. Of course, we talked about things like CRA. But what I want to understand from you is that when we look at all these political changes, public sector changes, regulations, what does it mean for the future of open source? Very thankfully, the challenges that we faced last year in 2023 around regulations specifically, the Cyber Resilience Act and AI regulation and how it is being designed in different jurisdictions around the world have helped us make the case for open source and the benefits of open collaboration and openness as it relates to sustainable development of technology and providing the world with the most robust technologies because of the process of having mass collaboration from all regions. So this was, I think, the outcomes of the Cyber Resilience Act have set us up for success. It's provided a great example, a great testing ground for how the open source community can come together and confront common challenges as they relate to regulation and really make the case for why regulation needs to be responsible and it needs to be inclusive of all the stakeholders at the point of the original drafting of a regulation, not at the point where it's in the approval phase. So we learned a lot in 2023. We learned how to collaborate better as a community. That was illustrated in our coming together in Geneva for Open Source Congress and I see more of that type of activity where we keep the conversations going. We keep our collaboration across open source foundations open and engaging and, you know, have a shared will to cooperate on all of these challenges. So I think we've set ourselves up to go forward in a very productive way. Now just look at the opposite side of the aisle of public sector, private sector. Of course, open source has kind of become a preferred model of software development but are there still industries which are yet to fully or at all embrace open source and do you see them starting to adopt open source which would further feed their growth? Excellent question. We see tremendous opportunities for more collaboration in certain industries and I'll give you two examples. One being healthcare and the other being in manufacturing. Let's focus on manufacturing for a moment because we have all seen the news about Boeing's 737 aircraft and there is a deep need for greater trust at both the manufacturing level for equipment like aircraft or equipment like healthcare medical equipment and maintenance and safety records to be more transparent. We need greater traceability in our parts and our service. There's an incredible role for digital trust to improve healthcare and manufacturing. Digital supply chains, the 3B printing where parts and the provenance of those parts are certified. And so I think crises in industry often creates change and it increases collaboration because there's a need. There may be a mandate from a government to improve processes and improve transparency or there is a mandate that comes by way of digital transformation that the competitive environment is so acute that industries have to rethink how they organize themselves. And so I think healthcare and manufacturing for different reasons can benefit from greater open source collaboration. You mentioned AI and last year at the open source summit in Bill Bowie Spain, the Lynx Foundation, you folks announced some projects around Genitive AI as well. But when we look at Genitive AI, of course, there is software side, there is model side, but a new kind of challenge is emerging, which is around copyright and content. Some publishers are suing the companies now because they are not comfortable with them accessing their content. What role do you see foundation and especially Lynx foundation gameplay to tackle some of these challenges that we are seeing in terms of Genitive AI? The New York Times case is on everybody's minds as a challenge that relates to Genitive AI and our appropriate use of technology and not infringing on copyright, whether it's licenses or intellectual property. One of the exciting projects that we host at the Lynx Foundation that is helping to solve for this type of scenario is particularly relevant in 2024 because it is an election year in both the United States in November, the European Parliament in June, and the need to have authentic content is extremely important. The ability to certify the provenance of political content, of campaign content, and so much as being manipulated to undermine adversaries, we have a new technology, a standard that is from the coalition for content provenance and authenticity. This is a set of standards that allows users and creators to have greater certainty around the provenance of content from different media. That will create trust in Genitive AI, in content that we're viewing online, and we're seeing manufacturers come to terms with this need and embed these types of capabilities. Certainly, camera equipment manufacturers are allowing for the origins and traceability of imagery. We're seeing it rolled out by Sony, by Canon, and by Nikon. Foundations need to come together once again to ensure that our communities are upholding the highest possible standards when it comes to not infringing on copyright, using tools to overcome this challenge, encouraging their proliferation, and so on. So it is such an important topic. There's a lot of work that we have to do to ensure that great technologies are not undermined by bad practices. Now, let's talk about another ecosystem or market, which is interesting because suddenly you'll see a spike in interest, and then there will be dull moments, a spike in interest, and dull moments. I'm talking about crypto and digital currency. You folks have some projects there last year. You've also, I think last year, you folks also announced open wallet time passes by so quickly. So a lot of pieces are already there when it comes to crypto and digital currency. Talk a bit about cryptocurrency, digital currency, and open source. The headlines are talking about Bitcoin ETFs. The price of Bitcoin is up over 40,000 US dollars. It has not disappeared. It's overcome. The whole blockchain industry has overcome a pretty tumultuous time with the demise of FTX, Sam Bankman freeds fraud, and so on. However, what remains true is that digital assets and digital currencies are here to stay, and we are going to see more activity in 2024 as it relates to the world of digital assets and open source, and the Linux Foundation is excited about our role in sustaining these communities. Late in 2023, we announced the intent to form a new initiative with Circle, a payments company, and Block, Jack Doracy's FinTech company. Block's TBD, in fact, to accelerate standards for open payments. So that's really exciting. Open payment standards, digital credential standards, and decentralized IDs. These two are digital assets. They have value, perhaps not monetary value, but a tremendous intrinsic value and value as it relates to our ability to transact. And so these types of developments are playing to a need in the world, particularly as it relates to 1.7 billion people who remain unbanked and who are not part of our global financial system. Yet, because they have a mobile phone, they have opportunities to transact in a digital economy. They may well be able to have access to central bank digital currency eventually without a bank account or other types of stablecoins like USDC, which is created by Circle. So digital currency, stablecoins, and yes, perhaps even Bitcoin, and other tokens from public blockchains, are going to remain in the headlines throughout 2024. And the Bitcoin ETF developments have reignited those conversations about digital assets in the modern economy. And now let's talk about security. Thanks for that. We have actually moved away from skin-mongering and security as an afterthought or someone else's problem to it being a priority. We talk about the whole shift-let movement. How do you see open source empowering security practitioners? Of course, you folks have projects like open source security foundations. So let's look at security from the lens of open source. I see it remaining one of the most important focuses for the Linux Foundation, for the open source security foundation, obviously. And I see tremendous opportunities for impact. We are continuing to collaborate with as many parties as we can work with because of our belief that security is a shared responsibility. And so opening dialogue with organizations to make sure that they have every opportunity to embrace the tools, the practices, and support the programming that is making advancements in security. At Linux Foundation Research, we're continuing to publish new reports to identify what is the most important software, what is the most widely used software at the application layer, as a means to help secure that software. So we're continuing to work with Harvard Laboratory of Innovation Science on Census 3, where through a number of data set partners, we're looking at software composition analysis firms, what their data sets are revealing, will conduct subsequent research to determine who is maintaining those repositories, what resources do they need, all as a means to help secure software supply chains. We're also conducting research in terms of cyber education. Where are the opportunities to accelerate learning about cyber security practices, improving software development for learners so that at the earliest levels, software developers are learning to build secure by default and not secure as an aftermath or as an afterthought. Where is the programming weakest? How can we do more to ensure that our learners across all channels have the best possible opportunity to think differently about software security? So it's a multi-pronged approach that we're very strongly committed to, that we're engaging with regulators, their meetings taking place in Washington, as many as many opportunities to engage in Europe as possible to collaborate in cyber security. We'll be there. Before we wrap this up, I want to ask you what is going to be the focus of Linux Foundation in 2024? For 2024, we at the Linux Foundation are absolutely committed to continuing to work with our developer communities and to providing developers with the best possible resources, tooling, best practices, support, events, educational resources to keep them engaged, to keep their participation high and work with our developers. They are the life of our organization. And whatever we can do to nurture developer ecosystems is where we'll be focusing much of our efforts. You'll be seeing many Linux Foundation team members at FOSTOM in Brussels at the beginning of February. I'm speaking at FOSTOM, so that's exciting, hosting events as we do to engage developers and also doing more research, looking at the role of in-person events and how significant that role is on the developer's learning journey. It's very challenging for developers to come together and open source. We are a global community. We need resources to come together and build those bridges and build those networks. And events are a mechanism where we can do that. So doubling down on our commitment to hosting the best possible events to engage developers, provide them with the best possible tools, the best possible research, that's what we're really focused on this year. Hillary, thank you so much for taking time out today and share these great insights. And as usual, I would love to chat with you again soon. Thank you. Thank you, Swap. It's been great to be back.