5 biggest Linux and open-source stories of 2024: From AI arguments to security close calls
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wise development. It was the age of open-source business foolishness. It was the spring of AI hope. It was the winter of security despair.
The year 2024 saw major advances in Linux and open-source software development. However, it also witnessed some disturbing open-source business moves that raised concerns about its future.
For all practical purposes, all software is built using open source. By Synopsys' count, 96% of all codebases contain open-source software. But all too often in recent years, once a business has established itself with open source, it dumps its code's open-source licenses for semi-proprietary licenses such as the Server Side Public License (SSPL) and the Business Source License (BSL) 1.1.
This trend has included companies such as Cockroach Labs, Confluent, MongoDB, Elastic, MariaDB, Redis Labs, and HashiCorp. The list goes on and on and grows ever larger.
