The end of the year creates a rare kind of quiet. It is the kind that makes it easier to reflect on how you have been building, what you have been learning, and what you want to do differently next year. It is also the perfect moment to catch up on the mountain of browser tabs you’ve kept open and podcast episodes you’ve bookmarked. Speaking of podcasts, we have one! (Wow, smooth transition, Cassidy).

If you’re looking to level-up your thinking around AI, open source software sustainability, and the future of software, we have some great conversations you can take on the road with you. 

This year on the GitHub Podcast, we talked with maintainers, educators, data experts, and builders across the open source ecosystem. These conversations were not just about trends or tools. They offered practical ways to think more clearly about where software is headed and how to grow alongside it. If 2026 is about building with more intention, these five episodes are a great place to start.

Understand where AI tooling is actually heading

If this year left you feeling overwhelmed by the pace of change in AI tooling, you are not alone. New models, new agents, and new workflows seemed to appear every week, often without much clarity on how they fit together or which ones would actually last.

Our Unlocking the power of MCP episode slows things down. It introduces the Model Context Protocol (MCP) as a way to make sense of that chaos, explaining how an open standard can help AI systems interact with tools in consistent and transparent ways. Rather than adding to the noise, the conversation gives you a clearer mental model for how modern AI tools are being built and why open standards matter for trust, interoperability, and long-term flexibility. Most importantly, MCP makes building better for everyone. Learn about how the standard works (and you can check out GitHub’s open sourced MCP server, too).

Ship smaller, smarter software—faster

Not every meaningful piece of software needs a pitch deck or a product roadmap. Building tools and the future of DIY development explores a growing shift toward personal, purpose-built tools. These are tools created to solve one specific problem well, often by the people who feel that pain most acutely. Developers and non-developers alike are really empowered these days by open source and AI tools, because they’re enabled to build faster and with less mental overhead. It is a great reminder that modern tooling and AI have lowered the barrier to turning ideas into working software, without stripping away creativity or craftsmanship. After listening to this one, you might just pick up that unused domain name and make something! 😉

Understand what keeps open source sustainable

If you were around the tech scene in 2021, you probably remember the absolute chaos that came with the Log4Shell vulnerability that was exposed in November that year. That vulnerability (and others since then) put a spotlight on the world’s dependence on underfunded open source infrastructure. But, money can’t solve all of the world’s problems, unfortunately. From Log4Shell to the Sovereign Tech Fund is a really interesting conversation about why success is not just about funding, but also community health, processes, and communication. By the end, you come away with a deeper appreciation for the invisible labor behind the tools you rely on, and a clearer sense of how individuals, companies, and governments can show up more responsibly.

Align your skills with real-world trends

2025 really has been the year of growth and change across projects. The Octoverse report analyzes the state of open source across 1.12 billion open source contributions, 518 million merged pull requests, 180 million developers… you get the idea, a lot of numbers and a lot of data. TypeScript’s Takeover, AI’s Lift-Off: Inside the 2025 Octoverse Report grounds the conversation in data from GitHub’s Octoverse report, turning billions of contributions into meaningful signals. The discussion helps connect trends like TypeScript’s rise, AI-assisted workflows, and even COBOL’s unexpected resurgence to real decisions developers face: what to learn next, where to invest time, and how to stay adaptable. Rather than predicting the future, it offers something more useful: a clearer picture of the present and how to navigate what comes next.

Understand what privacy-first software looks like in practice

As more everyday devices become connected, it is getting harder to tell where convenience ends and control begins. This episode offers a refreshing counterpoint. Recorded live at GitHub Universe 2025, the conversation with Frank “Frenck” Nijhof explores how Home Assistant has grown into one of the most active open source projects in the world by prioritizing local control, privacy, and long-term sustainability.

Listening to Privacy-First Smart Homes with Frenck from Home Assistant shifts how you think about automation and ownership. You hear how millions of households run smart homes without relying on the cloud, why the Open Home Foundation exists to fight vendor lock-in and e-waste, and how a welcoming community scaled to more than 21,000 contributors. The discussion also opens up what contribution can look like beyond writing code, showing how documentation, testing, and community support play a critical role. It is a reminder that building better technology often starts with clearer values and more inclusive ways to participate. Plus, you get to hear about the weird and wonderful ways people use Home Assistant to power their lives. 

Take this with you

As we look toward 2026, these episodes share a common thread. They encourage building with clarity, curiosity, and care for your tools, your community, and yourself. Whether you are listening while traveling, winding down for the year, or planning what you want to focus on next, we hope these conversations help you start the year feeling more grounded and inspired.

And if you speed through these episodes, don’t worry; we have so many more fantastic episodes from this season. You can listen to every episode of the GitHub Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or watch them on YouTube. We are excited to see what you build in 2026.

The post 5 podcast episodes to help you build with confidence in 2026 appeared first on The GitHub Blog.

From Appwrite to Zulip, the Open Source Zone at Universe 2025 was stacked with projects that pushed boundaries and turned heads. These twelve open source teams brought the creativity, the engineering craft, and the “I need to try that” demos that make Universe special. Here’s a closer look at what they showcased this year.

If you want to join them in 2026, applications for next year’s Open Source Zone are open now!

Appwrite: Backend made simple

Appwrite is an open source backend platform that helps developers build secure and scalable apps without boilerplate. With APIs for databases, authentication, storage, and more, it’s become a go-to foundation for web and mobile developers who want to ship faster.

Origin story: Appwrite Appwrite was created in 2019 by Eldad Fux as a side project, and it quickly grew from a weekend project to one of the fastest-growing developer platforms on GitHub, with over 50,000 stars and hundreds of contributors worldwide. 

GoReleaser: Effortless release automation for Go

GoReleaser automates packaging, publishing, and distributing Go projects so developers can ship faster with less stress. With strong support from its contributor base, it has become the go-to release engineering tool for Go maintainers who want to focus on building rather than busywork.

🚦 Go go go, GoReleaser: GoReleaser started life in 2015 as a simple release.sh script. Within a year, @caarlos0, rewrote it in Go with YAML configs, during his holiday break—instead of, you know, actually taking a holiday. That rewrite became the foundation of what’s now a tool with over 15,000 stars and paying customers worldwide. GitHub included! E.g. for GitHub CLI.

And can we all just take a minute to applaud the GoReleaser logo?!

💡 Fun fact: one of my colleagues, @ashleymcnamara, has created a secession (that’s the word for a bunch of Gophers—I checked!) of iconic Gopher designs that have become part of Go’s visual culture. If you’ve seen a Gopher sticker at a conference, odds are it came from her repo. Watch out, Ashley. Looks like you have some competition.

Homebrew: The missing package manager for macOS

Speaking of great logos. Homebrew is the de facto package manager for macOS, beloved by developers for making it simple to install, manage, and update software from the command line. From data scientists to DevOps engineers, millions rely on Homebrew every day to bootstrap their environments, automate workflows, and keep projects running smoothly.

Thanks for having us! GitHub Universe was a great opportunity to re-energize by meeting users and fellow maintainers.

Issy Long, Senior Software Engineer & Homebrew Lead Maintainer

Ladybird: A browser for the bold

Ladybird is an ambitious and independent open source browser being built from scratch with performance, security, and privacy in mind. What began as a humble HTML viewer is now evolving into one of the most exciting projects in the browser space, supported by a rapidly growing global community.

💡 Did you know: Ladybird started life in 2018 as a tiny HTML viewer tucked inside the SerenityOS operating system. Fast-forward a few years and it’s grown up into a full-fledged, from-scratch browser with a buzzing open source community—1200 contributors and counting!

Moondream: Tiny AI, big vision

Moondream is an open source visual language model that brings visual intelligence for everyone. With a tiny 1 GB footprint and blazing performance, it runs anywhere from laptops to edge devices without the need for GPUs or complex infrastructure. Developers can caption images, detect objects, follow gaze, read documents, and more using natural language prompts. With more than 6 million downloads and thousands of GitHub stars, Moondream is trusted across industries from healthcare to robotics, making state-of-the-art vision AI as simple as writing a line of code.

Oh My Zsh: Supercharge your shell

Oh My Zsh is a community-driven framework that makes the Zsh shell stylish, powerful, and endlessly customizable. With hundreds of plugins and themes and millions of users, it is one of the most beloved ways to supercharge the command line.

People get really into customizing their prompts—myself included—but GitHub’s @casidoo raised the bar with her blog post. Safe to say her prompt looks way cooler than mine. For now… 😈

💡 Fun fact: Oh My Zsh started in 2009 as a weekend project by Robby Russell, and it’s now one of the most popular open-source frameworks for managing Zsh configs, with thousands of plugins and themes contributed by the community. <3

OpenCV: The computer vision powerhouse

OpenCV is the most widely used open source computer vision library in the world, powering robotics, medical imaging, and cutting-edge AI research. With a vast community of contributors, it remains the essential toolkit for developers working with images and video.

🧐 Did you know: OpenCV started in 1999 at Intel as a research project and today it powers everything from self-driving cars to Instagram filters, with over 40,000 stars on GitHub and millions of users worldwide!

Open Source Project Security Baseline (OSPSB): Raising the bar

Security isn’t glamorous, but maintaining a healthy open source ecosystem depends on it—and that’s where the Open Source Project Security Baseline (OSPSB) comes in. OSPSB, an initiative from the OpenSSF community, gives maintainers a practical, no-nonsense checklist of what “good security” actually looks like. Instead of vague best practices, it focuses on realistic, minimum requirements that any project can meet, no matter the size of the team.

At Universe 2025, OSPSB resonated with maintainers looking for clarity in a world of shifting threats. The maturity levels and self-assessment tools make it simple to understand where your project is strong, where it needs improvement, and how users can contribute back to security work — a win for the entire ecosystem.

💡 Fun fact: OSPSB is used by hundreds of projects as a self-assessment tool, and it’s supported by the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund to help maintainers keep their software resilient.

The resilience and sustainability of open source is a shared responsibility between maintainers and users. Beyond telling consumers why they should trust your project, Baseline will also tell them where they can contribute to security improvements.

Xavier René-Corail, Senior Director, GitHub Security Research

p5.js and Processing for Creative Coding

p5.js is a beginner-friendly JavaScript library that makes coding accessible for artists, educators, and developers alike. From interactive art to generative visuals, it empowers millions to express ideas through code and brings creative coding into classrooms and communities worldwide.

Processing is an open-source programming environment designed to teach code through visual art and interactive media. Used by artists, educators, and students worldwide, it bridges technology and creativity, making programming accessible, playful, and expressive.

PixiJS: Powering graphics on the web

PixiJS  is a powerful HTML5 engine for creating stunning 2D graphics on the web. Built on top of WebGL and WebGPU, it delivers one of the fastest and most flexible rendering experiences available. With an intuitive API, support for custom shaders, advanced text rendering, multi-touch interactivity, and accessibility features, PixiJS empowers developers to craft beautiful, interactive experiences that run smoothly across desktop, mobile, and beyond. With over 46,000 stars on GitHub and adoption by hundreds of global brands, PixiJS has become the go-to toolkit for building games, applications, and large-scale visualizations in the browser.

💡 Fun fact: PixiJS has been around for more than 12 years and has powered everything from hit games like Happy Wheels and Subway Surfers to immersive art installations projected onto city buildings. Developer Simone Seagle used PixiJS to bring The Met’s Open Access artworks to life—animating Kandinsky’s Violett with spring physics and transforming Monet’s water lilies into a swirling, interactive experience.

SparkJS: Splat the limits of 3D

Spark (no, not that one!) is an advanced 3D Gaussian Splatting renderer for THREE.js, letting developers blend cutting-edge research with the most popular JavaScript 3D engine on the web. Portable, fast, and surprisingly lightweight, SparkJS brings real-time splat rendering to almost any device with correct sorting, animation support, and compatibility for major splat formats like .PLY, .SPZ, and .KSPLAT.

What is Gaussian Splatting? Gaussian Splatting is a graphics technique that represents 3D objects as millions of tiny, semi-transparent ellipsoids (“splats”) instead of heavy polygon meshes. It delivers photorealistic detail, smooth surfaces, and fast real-time performance, making it a rising star in computer vision, neural rendering, and now, thanks to Spark, everyday web development.

Zulip: Conversations that scale

Zulip is the open source team chat platform built for thoughtful communication at scale. Unlike traditional chat apps where conversations quickly become noise, Zulip’s unique topic-based threading keeps discussions organized and discoverable, even days later. With integrations, bots, and clients for every platform, Zulip helps distributed teams collaborate without the chaos.

💡 Fun fact: Zulip began as a small startup in 2012, was acquired by Dropbox in 2014, and open sourced in 2015. Today it has over 1500 contributors worldwide, powering communities, classrooms, nonprofits, and companies that need conversations to stay useful.

We want to thank the maintainers for participating at GitHub Universe in the Open Source Zone, and for your projects that are making our world turn. You all are what open source is about! <3

Even if you didn’t get to meet these folks at Universe, it’s never too late to check out their work. Or, you can keep powering open source by contributing to or sponsoring a project.

The post This year’s most influential open source projects appeared first on The GitHub Blog.

The holiday season is here, and Copilot can help you start the new year strong. In Episode 4 of our Copilot Your Holidays series, Samhita and Saurabh share practical ways to set the tone for the new year and celebrate in style: drafting team emails, brainstorming party themes, and even creating fun invitations.

 

Prompts We Used

Team Priorities Email
"Draft an engaging email to my team outlining our top 3 priorities for the new year and include a motivational quote for the New Year. Use /[reference document]."

Party Planning
"Give me a creative New Year’s Eve party theme with playlist ideas and a quick décor checklist."
Bonus: "Create a party invitation."

Call to Action

Try these prompts today in Copilot Chat (free) or M365 Copilot (licensed). Share your favorite Copilot-generated New Year ideas with us in the comments!

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Welcome Dr Mark Palmeri, professor at Duke University!

• Mark has been at Duke since 1996, and has completed undergraduate, graduate, medical, and PhD degrees here (!)
• He has focused on making medical devices and now teaches others to do the same in his Biomedical Engineering (BME) courses
• Verification and Validation (v&v) is a large constraint in getting a regulated medical device to market
• BME design fellows is a program that guides students towards real world use cases and design projects
• The courses that Mark runs reminds Chris of “automatic job offers” that Chris has heard about for classes like those taught by former guest Larry Sears (at CWRU). Also SMPS design courses at UT Dallas and microarchitecture courses like those taught at University of Michigan.
• Teaching the skills of troubleshooting / debug
• Putting together circuits like Legos
• There are difficulties when teaching students with various levels of experience, namely how deep to go on any particular subject and how much background to provide.
• Mark has been flipping a circuit course on its head, instead prompting students with ideas like “how do you capture bio signals electronically and pull them into a microcontroller”
• Tools of the trade for Mark’s courses include
  • KiCad
  • ngspice (built in to KiCad)
  • Jupyter notebooks
  • VS code
  • Git
  • Zephyr
• Talking about power as an intuition builder, as opposed to currents or voltages
• V&V requires that you have a quality management system (QMS)
• IEC60601
• Going through companies that have  QMS can be a shorter path for bringing a device to market
• Even face shields needed to go through that process when COVID hit
• Firmware and embedded in BME at graduate level
• Mark and students in BME Design Fellows course have been working on a Tympanometer, targeted at resource constrained industries
• Mark also teaches students how to use Zephyr, as opposed to how most educational programs migrate towards arduino
• A challenge for teaching Zephyr is the devicetreed
• They target Nordic Semiconductor parts, which have great support and educational resources
• Mark experienced a “vertical learning curve” when first migrating designs to Zephyr a few years ago
• Complicating things is that most students haven’t coded in C, if they have done much code at all
• Teaching how to lock to a particular version with Zephyr manifests
• Using CI/CD for automated builds
• Focusing on state machines early on, using Zephyr’s state machine framework (SMF)
• All of Mark’s courses are on github under his username mlp6
• Teaching stack vs heap
• Mark only ever has taken one official progrmming course
• The benefits of experiential learning
• Accreditation is a constant challenge with non-standard courses and testing
• Duke is taking retrospective and prospective looks at the space of education
• Problem sets are moot these days
• Mark gave a great example about teaching a student about Bode Plots
• “Thats a trick problem” is something Mark hears wrt testing (when it’s definitely not)
• “Getting the reps in” is an important concept in educational contexts, and something Chris really resonates with
• Building open ended problems vs closed
• The more open ended a problem, the more time it take to grade / evaluate
• TI-85 / 83 / 92 calculators
• Jupyter notebooks as a way to track progress and have students show their work
• More about the tympanometer project
• They have been working with Duke hospital, a major benefit for Mark and his BME colleagues
• Continuous middle ear infection that causes scarring that causes lifelong loss
• Sound reflection under vacuum is an indicator that more testing is needed
• The key innovation is making it lower cost and allow a layperson to do the screening to hand off a child to get more screening at a pro clinic
• BME Design Fellow students getting to design the various parts of the design
• They have multiple sources of funding: private, nih, etc
• Value engineering in medical space
• Mark points out the philosophical question on whether you can reduce costs by reducing testing … but thinking about whyat that takes to satisfy that need
• Find Mark online
  • mlp6 on Github
  • His Duke homepage
  • tymp project article
  • Find him on LinkedIn
  • Duke BME design fellows / on LinkedIn

Download audio: https://traffic.libsyn.com/theamphour/TheAmpHour-711-MarkPalmeri.mp3