This Week in Open Source #13

by Daryl Ducharme, Google Open Source

This Week in Open Source for January 23, 2026

A look around the world of open source

Can you believe we're already wrapping up the first month of the year? January is coming to a close. The open source ecosystem is buzzing with activity, from the upcoming community gatherings at FOSDEM in Brussels to new conversations around AI standards and cloud flexibility.

Google Open Source believes that "a community is a garden, not a building". It requires constant tending to thrive. This week, we're looking at how we can all contribute to that growth—whether it's by securing the software supply chain, standardizing AI agents, or simply learning from the legends of our field like Linus Torvalds.

Dive in to see what's happening this week in open source!

Upcoming Events

  • January 29: CHAOSScon Europe 2026 is co-located with FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium. This conference revolves around discussing open source project health, CHAOSS updates, use cases, and hands-on workshops for developers, community managers, project managers, and anyone interested in measuring open source project health. It also shares insights from the CHAOSS context working groups including OSPOs, University Open Source, and Open Source in Science and Research.
  • January 31 - February 1: FOSDEM 2026 is happening at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium. It is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.
  • February 24 - 25: The Linux Foundation Member Summit is happening in Napa, California. It is the annual gathering for Linux Foundation members that fosters collaboration, innovation, and partnerships among the leading projects and organizations working to drive digital transformation with open source technologies.
  • March 5 - 8: SCALE 23x is happening in Pasadena, California. It is North America's largest community-run open source conference and includes four days of sessions, workshops, and community activities focused on open source, security, DevOps, cloud native, and more.
  • March 9 - 10: FOSSASIA Summit 2026 is happening in Bangkok, Thailand. It will be a two-day hybrid event that showcases the latest in open technologies, fostering collaboration across enterprises, developers, educators, and communities.

Open Source Reads and Links

  • [Article] The state of trusted open source - This review of the state of trusted open source report goes over many statistics. One of the interesting ones is that vulnerabilities most often hide in the smaller dependencies of the larger projects we might be focused on. What does this mean for your approach to security? How should various open source communities deal with this?
  • [Blog] Software Heritage Archive recognized as a digital public good - As the Software Heritage Archive celebrates its 10th anniversary, the Archive has scaled to protect over 27 billion unique source files, even solving the "2PB problem" by deploying protocols that compressed 78TB of graph data into a 3TB research dataset. This ensures that humanity's executable history remains a global commons rather than a proprietary secret, aligning with our belief at Google that Code is for today, Open Source is forever.
  • [Blog] Agent Definition Language: The open standard AI agents have been missing - The Agent Definition Language (ADL) creates a clear, shared way to describe AI agents so they work well across different systems. This helps teams understand what agents do, how they behave, and how to govern them safely. As an open and standard, ADL makes AI agents easier to build, review, and share in the open-source community.
  • [Blog] AI Agent Engineering in Go with the Google ADK - AI, agents, and the related protocols touch on many open source projects. This post gives you a technical hands on with the Agent Starter Pack. By following it you'll learn how to build, test, and securely deploy a Go AI agent using Google Cloud services.
  • [Article] How Kubernetes Broke the AWS Cloud Monopoly - Before Kubernetes, companies felt locked into AWS because of its unique APIs. Kubernetes allowed apps to run on any cloud, giving users more choice and helping other cloud providers grow. This has made multi-cloud the way forward for many enterprises. Are you utilizing a multi-cloud strategy? Has Kubernetes helped you get there?
  • [Article] Even Linux Creator Linus Torvalds is Using AI to Code in 2026 - Opinions vary on where and whether AI is useful in various areas. One place that it has shown the greatest benefit is in as a tool for writing code. It seems Linus Torvalds has started to use it to assist with part of his AudioNoise side project. What a good way to find out how best AI can work for oneself. How have you been using AI with your code?

What exciting open source events and news are you hearing about? Let us know on our @GoogleOSS X account or our new @opensource.google Bluesky account.

Prepare for the SAT with full-length practice tests in Gemini

What’s changing

Standardized tests are often a critical component of the college application process. To support high school and college prep students during these critical milestones, we’re launching practice tests in Gemini: full-length, on-demand practice exams available at no cost. Available now, practice tests support the SAT to start, with more tests coming in the future. To try it out, tell Gemini, “I want to take a practice SAT test”. 


To ensure they prepare you for the actual exam, we have grounded practice tests in rigorously vetted content from leading education companies like The Princeton Review, to build a best in class experience for learners coming to Gemini. This helps ensure that you’re not just practicing — you’re preparing with material that more closely resembles what you’ll see on test day.

When you complete a practice test in Gemini, you’ll receive immediate feedback highlighting where you excelled and where you might need to study more. For anything you don’t understand, you can ask Gemini to explain the correct answer. By helping you identify specific knowledge gaps, Gemini empowers you to turn those insights into action — creating a customized study plan that can help you walk into your exam with confidence. 

Whether you are preparing for the SAT for the first time or you’re planning to retake the exam soon, Gemini is ready to help you take the next step in your educational journey.

Getting started

  • Admins: Access to the Gemini app and its features can be enabled or disabled for your users at the organizational unit (OU) or group level. Visit the Help Center to learn more.
  • End users: End users of all ages who have access to the Gemini app will receive access to Practice tests automatically. To get started, try telling Gemini, “I want to take an SAT practice test.”

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts who are signed in to the Gemini app

Resources

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – January 23, 2026

A summary of announcements from the last week:

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog over the last week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Automatic addition of owned secondary calendars to your calendar list

Following our recent announcement regarding the improvements on secondary calendar management with dedicated owners, all secondary calendars you own will consistently be displayed in your calendar list in Google Calendar. Your calendar list is visible in your Calendar settings page. | Learn more about the automatic addition of owned secondary calendars to your calendar list.

Neat now a certified Google Meet hardware partner

Google Meet is committed to helping organizations bridge the gap between distributed teams with hardware that is easy to deploy, manage, and use. Today, we’re excited to announce that Neat has joined the Google Meet hardware ecosystem as a certified partner, bringing more variety and specialized video conferencing technology to Google Workspace customers. | Learn more about Neat, now a certified Google Meet hardware partner.

Forward messages in Google Chat

To make it easier to share information across different conversations, we’re introducing the ability to forward messages in Google Chat. This new feature  eliminates the need for manual workarounds such as  copying and pasting text or sharing screenshots. | Learn more about forwarding messages in Google Chat.

View Google Meet usage metrics in Gemini reports dashboard

Admins can now access usage metrics for Google Meet within the organization-level Gemini reports dashboard, in the “Gemini usage per interaction” section. This update gives you visibility into the value your organization derives from Gemini in Meet. | Learn more about viewing Google Meet usage metrics in the Gemini reports dashboard.

Granular OAuth consent in Google Chat apps

We recently announced that Chat apps built as Google Workspace add-ons using Apps Script would begin supporting a more granular OAuth consent screen this month. OAuth consent is needed by an app when the app is accessing user data or performing actions on a user’s behalf. | Learn more about granular OAuth consent in Google Chat apps.

Ask Gemini in Google Meet is expanding to Workspace Business Standard customers, additional languages, and mobile usage

In September 2025, we launched Ask Gemini in Meet, which brings the power of Gemini into your organization’s meetings. Today, we’re excited to announce we’re making the feature more broadly available to. | Learn more about how Ask Gemini in Google Meet is expanding to Workspace Business Standard customers, additional languages, and mobile usage.

Styled captions in Google Vids

Google Vids is an AI-powered video creation app for work, designed to help anyone become a great storyteller. It now allows users to create styled, animated captions that synchronize with audio and media elements. These captions act as a helpful visual guide, improving video comprehension and making content easier for viewers to track. | Learn more about styled captions in Google Vids.

Dev Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

The Dev channel is being updated to OS version 16552.12.0 (Browser version 145.0.7632.19) for most ChromeOS devices. 

If you find new issues, please let us know one of the following ways

  1. File a bug

  2. Visit our ChromeOS communities

    1. General: Chromebook Help Community

    2. Beta Specific: ChromeOS Beta Help Community

  3. Report an issue or send feedback on Chrome

Interested in switching channels? Find out how.

Andy Wu,
Google ChromeOS

Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 146.0.7647.4 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Chrome Release Team
Google Chrome

Styled captions in Google Vids

Google Vids is an AI-powered video creation app for work, designed to help anyone become a great storyteller. It now allows users to create styled, animated captions that synchronize with audio and media elements. These captions act as a helpful visual guide, improving video comprehension and making content easier for viewers to track. If there are spelling or grammar errors within the styled captions, users can edit and correct the captions.

GIF showing a video of a woman speaking with styled captions

Example video with styled captions

GIF showing how to access styled captions in the righthand menu in Vids

Access styled captions in the right rail

Captions are supported in the following languages: English, Arabic, Czech, Mandarin Chinese, German, Greek, Spanish, Finnish, Filipino, French, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:

  • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, the Teaching and Learning add-on, and the Endpoint Education add-on
  • Nonprofits
  • Individual
Also available to:

  • Google AI Pro and Ultra
  • Google AI Pro for Education add-on

Resources