The inaugural Open Source Summit Korea is set to take place in Seoul on 4–5 November, gathering developers, community leaders, corporate adopters and policy advocates under one roof. Organisers expect a high-powered two-day event blending technical deep dives, cross-domain dialogue and community building across open source's diverse ecosystems.

The summit will host seven major tracks: Cloud & Containers, Embedded Linux, Linux, Open AI + Data, Open Source Leadership, Operations Management, and Safety-Critical Software. Co-located with it is the OpenSSF Community Day on 4 November, focusing exclusively on open source security issues, supply chain resilience and emerging practices.

In its programme Committee, the summit features a cross-section of respected technologists and thought leaders, including Andy Peng of AWS, Animesh Pathak of Harness, Cara Delia of Red Hat's OSPO, Atish Patra, Bandan Das, and Chris Xie of Futurewei, among others. Their collective expertise spans cloud native systems, kernel infrastructure, governance and open source strategy, signalling the event's high level of ambition.

Key events slated for OpenSSF Community Day include sessions on“Containers, Code, and Chaos: Securing the CI/CD Supply Chain”, talks on dependency confusion detection, kernel fuzzing for real-time systems, and securing AI supply chains via SBOM and model transparency techniques. Many of these reflect current industry concerns over software supply chain risks and adversarial attacks on open source libraries.

Organisers emphasise that the summit is vendor-neutral, positioning it as a neutral forum for open source collaboration rather than a corporate showcase. The Call for Proposals ended on 4 August, and the schedule was publicly announced on 18 September. The event's footprint suggests strong backing from major foundations and commercial stakeholders alike: platinum and gold sponsors include Microsoft OSS, OpenSearch, Red Hat, and the Korea Open Source Software Association.

One strong through-line across planned sessions is the intersection of open source and AI. The“Open AI + Data” track aims to explore how foundational models, open datasets and ML frameworks can flourish within open source paradigms. With generative AI increasingly reliant on open source toolchains, this track is likely to attract considerable attention. Moderators and contributors from OSPOs, standards bodies and research labs are expected to surface debates on licensing, governance, security and accountability in AI.

Safety-critical systems represent another emerging emphasis. The summit's inclusion of a dedicated track for safety-critical software reflects growing interest in applying open source to regulated domains - automotive, medical devices, aerospace - where reliability, auditability and formal methods are central. The ELISA project will be part of that track, bridging real-world regulatory requirements and open source methods.

Seoul's selection as host city underscores South Korea's ambition to amplify its role in the global tech ecosystem. The city is already a hub for semiconductor development, telecommunications, AI R&D and startup activity. For domestic open source contributors, the summit offers direct exposure to international communities, mentoring and partnership opportunities. From a global vantage, the summit could strengthen Asia-Pacific engagement in critical infrastructure, cloud native development and cross-border open source governance.

To ensure broader participation, the organisers have structured the summit to include not just developers but also non-technical stakeholders: legal advisors, policy makers, community managers, academic researchers and OSPO practitioners. That inclusive model seeks to foster a holistic dialogue on open source's future, beyond code alone.

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