In retrospect, 2024 turned out to be a much more exciting year for Open Infrastructure than I anticipated. At the OpenInfra Foundation, we made tremendous progress toward our 2024 goals of protecting the OpenInfra vision of open source, supporting and strengthening our projects, and increasing OpenInfra’s impact. This progress is well documented in the following report, but let me call out a few reasons why I am particularly energized by how the OpenInfra community progressed this year.

First, we’re seeing a resurgence of support and adoption among organizations and individuals who wholeheartedly embrace the freedom and innovation that only open source collaboration provides. Although a few disappointing instances of “anti-open source” behavior have darkened the skies, the silver lining has been a catalyzed community of open source advocates who are letting their voices be heard and investing their time and resources to support open source projects. At the OpenInfra Foundation, we’ve documented substantial growth among all three “forces.” For example, developers continue to add powerful capabilities to our projects to support new workloads such as AI and accelerated hardware; users are driving massive demand for OpenStack and Kata Containers; and the ecosystem of companies providing OpenInfra products and services have created migration solutions to assist companies looking for alternatives to previously entrenched proprietary technology.

Second, the OpenInfra community is stepping up to meet the moment on regional challenges and opportunities. Our regional hubs—OpenInfra Europe and OpenInfra Asia—are actively engaged in addressing unique regional issues around open source. In addition, 2024 marked the launch of regional summits organized “by the community, for the community,” highlighted by a highly successful, sold-out OpenInfra Summit Asia in Suwon, South Korea. The community also stepped up to host dozens of OpenInfra Days and community events throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

Third, the OpenInfra community is having a very tangible impact on shaping the future. This year, we contributed to the effort to define Open Source AI, advocating for permissionless innovation in the spirit of The Four Opens. We also added our voice to regional legislative discussions regarding digital sovereignty and licensing. Most importantly, the support delivered by project teams around AI workloads, hardware enablement, ever-evolving security needs, and improved user experience clearly demonstrates how the OpenInfra community is committed to providing infrastructure not only for today’s demands but also for the revolutionary technological advancements yet to come.

It’s been a truly great year! And together we can make 2025 even better as we work together to deliver the OpenInfra software that drives the global economy and human progress.