Relive 60 years of soccer history at Mexico City’s Aztec Stadium with Google Earth and the ICA Foundation.

by Daryl Ducharme, Open Source Programs Office

This Week in Open Source for July 16, 2026

A look around the world of open source

We’re diving into another week of open source news and discussions. As the ecosystem continues to evolve, we're seeing more conversations around the intersection of AI workflows, security at scale, and the infrastructure that supports the open web.

This week, we’re highlighting a few "Open Source Reads" that tackle some of the biggest questions facing our ecosystem today—from the complex ethics of AI-generated workflows to the future of federated social networks. We hope these links provide valuable context as we work together to sustain the critical infrastructure we all rely on.

Upcoming Events

• ASWF Open Source Days (July 19–20) — Los Angeles, CA. Hosted by the Academy Software Foundation, focusing on open source software in visual effects (VFX) and animation.
• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Japan 2026 (July 28–30) — Yokohama, Japan. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's flagship conference in Japan.
• Black Hat & DEF CON 2026 (August 1–9) — Las Vegas, NV. While primarily cybersecurity, both heavily feature open source hacking tools. The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) also has a major presence here.
• FOSSY (August 6–9) — Vancouver, Canada. A highly community-focused open source conference emphasizing grassroots participation and collaboration.
• Community over Code Asia (August 7–9) — Beijing, China. The Asian edition of the Apache Software Foundation's (ASF) community-first conference.
• Open Source Summit Korea (August 11–12) — Seoul, South Korea. Hosted by the Linux Foundation, bringing together open source maintainers and enterprises.
• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon + OpenInfra Summit + PyTorch Conference China (September 7–9) — Shanghai, China. A massive collaborative mega-event uniting open infrastructure, cloud, and AI communities.
• OSPOlogy + OSPO Summit (September 7) — Shanghai, China. Focused on Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs), governance, and corporate open source sustainability.

Open Source Reads and Links

• [Blog] Elephants, Goldfish and the New Golden Age of Software Engineering - This isn't directly open source, but with the open source ecosystem trying to find good AI workflows I thought the Elephant-Goldfish model was an interesting take. It makes the distinction between using AI as a toy and using it as a tool.
• [Article] Open-source AI and the Choice Before Us - The communities with minimal influence on AI development will likely be the most affected by it. This article looks at how strong rules and institutions are needed to guide AI's safe and fair use. The future of AI depends on whether we build systems that include everyone or just deepen existing divides.
• [Article] Open source carries the world. Patching it at Mythos-scale can't fall to maintainers alone. - The past year has shown that AI is speeding up the discovery of vulnerabilities in open source software. Endor Labs is offering a solution to utilize AI to create patching stop gaps for users of the libraries so that maintainers and contributors have the time to create good quality fixes to these vulnerabilities.
• [Blog] The AT-URI Syntax Mess - I am very excited about the open social web, especially things happening around the AT protocol. Early misunderstanding led to the current AT URI syntax being invalid. This article looks at the possible ways forward.
• [Article] The Open Social Web Needs Section 230 to Survive - The open web has always been a promise of free speech. When walled garden social media got involved it created some questions around whether free speech applies to the content served by the corporations running those networks. However, the open social web is not run by corporations. It can be, and it can also be run by individuals federating instances or running their own PDS. So, how do we maintain the free speech promise of the internet with this in mind?

Which of these stories will you be chatting about at your next meetup or conference? Let us know! Share with us on our @GoogleOSS X account or our @opensource.google Bluesky account.

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Whether you're decorating, refreshing your wardrobe or picking up last-minute essentials, these shopping tools make all the difference.

Earlier this year, we introduced new Gemini in Google Docs capabilities that help you move from a blank page to a finished document faster than ever.

We are now expanding support for these features to 11 more languages, including Mandarin, Dutch, Malay, Hebrew, Polish, Turkish, Czech, Indonesian, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. These new additions join our previously supported languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, French, Korean, German, and Italian.

Reimagined Gemini experience in Docs

With this update, Google Docs offers a centralized place to generate, write, and refine your documents with Gemini. Powered by Workspace Intelligence, Gemini leverages data across Drive, Gmail, Chat, and the web to provide personalized, context-aware assistance.

• The upgraded Help me create experience enables you to generate relevant, fully formatted first drafts that synthesize information from your files, emails, chat, and the web.
• With Help me write, simply prompt Gemini from the bottom bar or side panel to make edits across your doc, or select text to focus Gemini’s attention. Gemini’s suggested edits are only visible to you until you approve them.
• Match writing style helps maintain a consistent tone and style across your entire doc, no matter how many people are working on it.
• With Match doc format, Gemini can mirror a source document to generate content that adheres to the original's formatting (e.g., fonts and colors) and structural elements (e.g., headings and table columns).

To generate new docs from scratch, open a new doc, enter your prompt, and click submit. To edit existing docs, simply hover over the spark near the bottom of your doc and type a prompt in the bottom bar.

Getting started

• Admins: These features are available by default if Gemini for Workspace in Drive is enabled. Note that enabling Workspace Intelligence expands the range of supported use cases.
• End users: You must have Workspace smart features enabled to use these features. Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating personalized documents with Gemini in Google Docs.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on July 15, 2026 
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 1, 2026 

Availability

• Business: Business Standard and Plus
• Enterprise: Enterprise Standard and Plus
• Education: Education Plus
• Consumer: Google AI Pro and Ultra
• Education Add-ons: Teaching and Learning
• Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access*; Google AI Pro for Education*

*Users with AI Expanded Access and Google AI Pro for Education add-on licenses will have higher limits on usage of Match writing style and Match document format tools.

Resources

• Google Docs Editors Help: Write & edit with Gemini in Docs
• Google Docs Editors Help: Learn how Gemini in Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Docs, Drive, Sheets, Slides, Meet & Vids protects your data

Users can now easily steer voiceover and avatar speaking in Google Vids by typing content within brackets like “[excitedly]”.

Steering suggestions in Vids scripts

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Resources

We’re renaming NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook. While it remains a standalone product focused on being your premier research tool, the new name reflects how it will evolve to do more across the Google ecosystem.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Impact

Resources

Google Cloud has partnered with Parallel Web Systems to natively integrate Parallel's search infrastructure as a web grounding provider on the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. This integration enables developers to anchor their AI agents in verifiable, real-time web results, significantly improving factual accuracy for complex enterprise workflows. Additionally, the partnership offers expanded architectural flexibility, allowing users to programmatically extract, permanently cache, and process web data alongside other large language models.

To resolve the scaling bottlenecks and runtime errors caused by monolithic system prompts, engineering teams should treat prompts as build artifacts by modularizing instructions into reusable templates. By running these modular "skill files" through a transpiler, developers can enforce static validation, catch missing dependencies at build time, and integrate prompt generation directly into their CI/CD pipelines. This deterministic approach prevents code drift and ultimately establishes a safe framework where agents can propose updates to their own logic via standard pull requests.

Google and the University of Waterloo’s Futures Lab is helping students build real-world AI tools and prepare for jobs of tomorrow.