Hello from KaiYuanShe

1. Our Story

KaiYuanShe was founded in 2014 by volunteers who care about open source. We work through contribution, consensus, and co-governance. We are vendor-neutral, non-profit, and focused on the public good. Our goal is to connect China with the global open source community and help build a healthy, lasting ecosystem.

The four major missions of KaiYuanShe

KaiYuanShe is a leading volunteer-led open source community in China. We work with communities, universities, companies, public organizations, and government teams. We were the first organization from China to join the Open Source Initiative as an affiliate member. We were also named Open Source Community of the Year on China's Open Source Innovation List.

Since 2016, KaiYuanShe has hosted the China Open Source Conference (COSCon), published the China Open Source Annual Report, and helped launch programs that recognize open source contributors. Over the past decade, we have connected tens of thousands of people, worked with thousands of members and volunteers, and partnered with speakers, sponsors, media outlets, and communities in China and abroad.

2. What We Do

The work of KaiYuanShe

Open Source Governance

In 2014, KaiYuanShe cooperated with OSS-Watch, the most well-known open source governance community in Europe, to provide open source governance tools on the official website of KaiYuanShe; it established a legal advisory committee to provide free open source governance consulting services to the community.

Since 2015, it has successively released the "China Open Source Annual Report" (early name: "China Open Source Ecosystem Annual Report"), as well as open source community participation survey reports, etc.

In January 2016, KaiYuanShe joined the Open Source Initiative (OSI, Open Source Initiative) and became the first Chinese member of the OSI Alliance.

In 2019, KaiYuanShe participated in the compilation of the first Chinese-English bilingual international open source license "Mulan Permissive License" and promoted the license MulanPSL v2 to pass OSI certification and be approved as an international open source license (International licenses).

In 2020, KaiYuanShe participated in the preparation of the "Open Source Community Contributor Contribution Evaluation Reference Framework" initiated by the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute; in the same year, KaiYuanShe released the "Open Source People's Declaration" welcoming open source collaboration.

In 2021, KaiYuanShe and Tengyuan Club launched the "WeOpen Good Open Source Public Welfare Plan" to promote the use of open source technology to empower public welfare organizations. In 2024, KaiYuanShe launched the "OpenGood Open Source Public Welfare" action, which was awarded the "2024 China Outstanding Open Science Action" and released the industry's first batch of OpenGood open source public welfare outstanding cases for open source public welfare.

In 2022, KaiYuanShe participated in the compilation of the Mulan Open Works License jointly organized by the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute and the University of Defense Technology; participated in the formulation of the "Information Technology Open Source Open Source Project Evaluation Model Reference Architecture" standard; participated in the review of the China Association for Science and Technology's "Science and Technology China" open source innovation list; and jointly reviewed and published two translated books "Embracing Open Source" and "Open Collaboration: Production and Maintenance of Open Source Software" with the X-lab Open Laboratory.

In 2024, KaiYuanShe participated in and recruited domestic communities and companies to support the Open Source AI Definition released by OSI. It also participated in the preparation of reports such as the "Open Source Large Model Application Guide 1.0" and the "Open Source Office (OSPO) Insight Report (2024)" of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

In 2025, KaiYuanShe was invited to serve as the Asia-Pacific representative of the Linux Foundation's "Sovereign AI Roundtable" to actively participate in dialogue on international issues and contribute Asian perspectives and practical experience to global open source and sovereign AI governance. In the same year, the "Xingyuan Lecture Hall", a series of online special lectures focusing on open source governance and community development, was launched.

From 2023 to 2025, KaiYuanShe has participated in the organization and discussion of Open Source Congress for three consecutive years. As a community force from China and representing Asia, it continues to make an important voice on the global open source stage.

Global Collaboration

KaiYuanShe has always adhered to the concept of "bringing in and going out" and actively established cooperation with the world's top open source communities, foundations and enterprises, including:

• Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
• CNCF Foundation
• COSCUP
• Ethereum Foundation
• FOSSASIA
• FOSDEM
• FreeBSD Foundation
• freeCodeCamp
• GNOME Foundation
• GitHub
• GOSIM
• Linux Foundation
• Node.js Foundation
• Open Innovation Networks (OIN)
• Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA)
• Open Source Initiative (OSI)
• OpenChain
• OpenInfra Foundation
• OSS Watch
• RISC-V Foundation
• Rust Foundation
• Amazon Web Services（AWS）
• Google
• Microsoft
• ...

We continue to promote in-depth exchanges and cooperation with domestic and foreign institutions, and actively build bridges for local high-quality open source projects to connect with international resources, participate in the global ecosystem, and join international foundation incubators such as ASF.

At the same time, KaiYuanShe and China Open Source Conference (COSCon), with their neutral, open and professional positioning, have received long-term attention and active participation from many top international foundations, enterprises and communities, becoming an important window for China's open source to go global.

Stefano Maffulli with Board Directors of KAIYUANSHE: Emily Chen, Nadia Jiang (photo credits), and Ted Liu.

Community Development

KaiYuanShe has held the "China Open Source Conference COSCon" for ten consecutive years. Open source celebrities and manufacturers at home and abroad gathered together to cooperate with more than 100 open source communities. The main venue and KCC branch venues in various places were linked to create an open source community event. As early as October 2015, we hosted the Apache China Roadshow with the support of ASF; we held the China Open Source Conference (COSCon) for nine consecutive years from 2016 to 2024, and it has now become the most influential open source event in China. COSCon has been awarded "China's most popular technology event among developers" by Sifou for many consecutive years.

2021-2024 China Open Source Conference

COSCon photo

We have developed and brought together a large and wide range of open source community partners, and worked with many communities to create a friendly, equal, and mutually supportive open source cooperation atmosphere, and actively serve as community partners for various domestic open source activities, such as: Open Atom Open Source Ecological Conference/Developer Conference, COPU Open Source China Open Source World Conference, CCF China Open Source Conference, The Bund Conference Open Source Carnival, FOSSASIA Summit, GOSIM China, CommunityOverCode ASIA (ApacheCon), KubeCon China, OSCAR Open Source Industry Conference, GOTC Global Open Source Technology Summit, GDPS Global Developer Pioneer Conference, RISC-V Summit China, Dev.together Developer Ecosystem Summit, OSPO Summit, Zhongguancun Open Source Ecosystem Forum, OpenInfra Days China, Shanghai Open Source Industry Ecosystem Conference, LF AI&DATA AICON, China, Japan and South Korea IT Directors OSS Conference and Northeast Asia Open Source Software Promotion Forum, Mulan Open Source Summit, GitHub Universe, CSDN 1024 Programmers Day, Ant Open Source Technology Salon, Huawei Cloud Open Source Developer Forum, ByteDance Open Source Open Day, AWS Community Day, etc. promote the exchange and integration of various community ecosystems.

Group photo of community cooperation activities

China Open Source Annual Report

China open source developer surveys, ecological environment reports, and in-depth thematic analysis, especially the integration of statistical data from GitHub and Gitee, two domestic and foreign open source code platforms, also open the code of statistical programs.

• 2015:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/document/china-os-report-2015
• 2016:https://github.com/kaiyuanshe/2016-China-Open-Source-Report
• 2018:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/2018-China-Open-Source-Report
• 2019:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/2019-China-Open-Source-Report
• 2020:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/document/china-os-report-2020
• 2021:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/document/china-os-report-2020
• 2022:https://kaiyuanshe.feishu.cn/wiki/wikcnnJ8b90pOoDRFzXngfRslkd
• 2023:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/2023-China-Open-Source-Report
• 2024:https://kaiyuanshe.github.io/2024-China-Open-Source-Report

Previous China Open Source Annual Reports

Open source projects

In terms of open source projects, KaiYuanShe has cooperated with community contributors to develop multiple open source projects. For details, please view the KaiYuanShe GitHub repository:

• https://github.com/kaiyuanshe

Open source education

Since 2014, KaiYuanShe has launched China's first series of open source lecture tours on campus, "Open Source Walkers", aiming to promote open source technology and culture in Chinese universities.

In 2017, the KaiYuanShe Executive Committee established working groups focusing on open source education such as the Open Source Education Group and the University Cooperation Group; in 2025, it was transformed into the Open Source Education SIG Group.

In 2018, KaiYuanShe produced the earliest open source education sub-forum at the 3rd China Open Source Conference. Since then, open source education and talent training related forums have been set up at every COSCON.

In 2019, KaiYuanShe donated money to establish the "China Open Source Software Education Fund" at East China Normal University. This project is China's first open source education fund. The funds are used for student training, student awards, open source innovation and entrepreneurship, open source societies, social practice and other activities related to open source education.

In 2020, KaiYuanShe released a series of open source education video courses "Open Source Special Training Camp" to systematically teach the introduction to open source. In the same year, as a member of the organizing committee, he participated in the "Summer 2020" event (the first "Open Source Summer") organized by the Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the openEuler community, and jointly launched a series of lectures with the organizer "Big Guys Talk About Open Source" to introduce open source concepts and culture to college students, and explain ways and means to participate in the open source community. Since then, we have continued to cooperate with Open Source Summer.

In 2022, KaiYuanShe served as a community partner of the first China Computer Society GitLink Programming Summer Camp (GLCC); the following year, KaiYuanShe became a member of the GLCC 2023 advisory committee.

In 2023, KaiYuanShe launched China's first youth open source forum at COSCon'23, organized by the OpenTeens community, focusing on the open source enlightenment and exploration and sharing of open source practices among primary school and high school students.

3. How We Work

KaiYuanShe is composed of a board of directors elected by individual formal members, and an executive committee and project committee appointed by the board of directors. The executive committee is responsible for the daily operations of each working group, and the project committee is responsible for the incubation and promotion of each project. It also establishes an advisory committee composed of enterprises, universities, communities and individual open source experts, as well as a legal advisory committee.

Organizational Structure of KaiYuanShe (2025)

KaiYuanShe 2025 Board of Directors

2025 directors (sorted by surname pinyin): Chen Yang, Jiang Bo (chairman), Li Mingkang, Liang Yao (executive director), Lin Luqiang (vice chairman), Xu Yin, Zhuang Biaowei (chairman of the project committee)

4. Contact Us

• Official website:https://kaiyuanshe.cn
• Social media account:
  • Public account: KaiYuanShe KAIYYUANSHE
  • X (Twitter): @KAIYUANSHE
  • LinkedIn: @kaiyuanshe
• Contact email: contact@kaiyuanshe.org

Development history

Since its establishment in 2014, KaiYuanShe has made a series of important progress in open source governance, international integration, community development, project incubation, etc.

wall of honor

For more than ten years, KaiYuanShe has been recognized by all walks of life and has achieved a series of important honors and achievements in the open source field.

OSI’s first Chinese member

January 2016

KaiYuanShe joined the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and became the first Chinese member of the OSI Alliance

Open Source Community of the Year

2023

Selected as the 'Open Source Innovation List-Annual Open Source Community', jointly selected by the Science and Technology Communication Center of the China Association for Science and Technology and others

Mulan License Passes OSI Certification

2020

Promote Mulan Permissive License MulanPSL v2 to pass OSI certification and be approved as an international category open source license

Excellent Action for Open Science in China

2024

OpenGood open source public welfare action was awarded '2024 China Outstanding Open Science Action'

The most popular technical events for developers

for many years

COSCon China Open Source Conference has been selected as "China's most popular technology event by developers" by Sifou for many consecutive years.

Sovereign AI Roundtable Asia Pacific Representative

2025

Invited to serve as the Asia-Pacific representative of the Linux Foundation's "Sovereign AI Roundtable" to participate in dialogues on international issues

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to our annual partners for their long-term support of KaiYuanShe and the cause of open source.