Building Global Momentum for Open Source, Software Transparency and Open Science in Tokyo

One week in Tokyo, three events packed with meetings in Tokyo. The Linux Foundation Japan Open Source Summit, the Open Compliance Summit, and an inspiring meeting with colleagues from Japan's National Institute for Informatics (NII) have been great opportunities to connect, collaborate, and showcase how Software Heritage is becoming the reference infrastructure for Open Source in so many areas of modern society, from industry, to public administration, to Open Science.

Open Source and Open Compliance

The Open Source Summit in Tokyo is one of the vibrant gatherings of professionals dedicated to promoting and leveraging Open Source across sectors. I was happy to see government and international organizations representatives coming on stage here too (I even picked a picture from their panel as lead image for this article). Open Source is more than a technological choice; it's a foundation for global innovation and collaboration and we need governments to weigh in.

The Open Compliance Summit was an ideal stage for showcasing Software Heritage’s growing capabilities in Open Source software monitoring and compliance. Software Heritage is the reference platform for satisfying complete and corresponding source code distributon obligations, following pioneering work by Stefano Zacchiroli and Alexios Zavras, and interested parties can join right now the growing group of our members.

With the proliferation of Open Source in the supply chain, there is an increased attention from regulators to ensure security and transparency, with Europe leading the way: the Cyber Resilience Act that was voted on October 10, 2024. We joined the Open Regulatory Compliance working group, where we'll contribute to the development of standards that will soon help organizations comply: as the regulatory landscape evolves, Software Heritage stands ready to support these new compliance needs, enabling secure and responsible use of Open Source software worldwide.

Building the Software Pillar of Open Science in Japan with the National Institute for Informatics (NII)

The week culminated in a productive meeting with colleagues at the National Institute for Informatics (NII) that run the key infrastructure to fulfil the government mandate for Open Science in 2025.

We discussed how Software Heritage can be integrated in their work to provide Japanese researchers with a seamless research software archival, reference, description and citation experience, along the line of what French researchers already enjoy thanks to the extensive work done with HAL and the CCSD in this domain.

We look forward to productive collaboration with NII to support software as one of the pillars of the national Open Science policy in Japan.

Tokyo highlights

These meetings left very little time to visit beautiful Tokyo, but I managed at least to walk through the beautiful Meiji Jingu park, where one can find gifts from local saké makers, and also from french winemakers, including a full barrel of Romanée Conti!

Looking forward to expanding these connections to continue building a resilient, open digital ecosystem that benefits everyone.