Thinking Bigger: State of the Open Home 2024

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We recently held our State of the Open Home 2024 live stream, where we revealed how we are thinking even bigger about securing the future of the smart home. During this stream we launched the Open Home Foundation, a new non-profit organization created to fight for the fundamental principles of the smart home — privacy, choice, and sustainability — focused on serving everyone that lives in one. To learn more about the Open Home Foundation read the full announcement.

The stream includes a deep dive into the evolution of Home Assistant and how it has now reached an estimated 1 million installations. There were other substantial updates on voice and hardware, including teasing our upcoming Z-Wave and voice assistant hardware. The first panel discussion featured the founders of Open Home Foundation collaborating projects WLED, Zigbee2MQTT, Rhasspy, and Z-Wave JS. A second panel gave a comprehensive overview of the state of open standards, featuring key open-source developers working on Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, and Bluetooth. The stream caps off with a look into the future of the open home, including the announcement of a roadmap full of exciting new features.

Full list of chapters:

  • Introduction (0:00:11)
  • Announcing the Open Home Foundation - Paulus Schoutsen (0:02:36)
  • Panel with Open Home Foundation collaborators - WLED, Zigbee2MQTT, Rhasspy, Z-Wave JS (0:18:31)
  • Voice - Michael Hansen (0:36:31)
  • Home Assistant - Franck Nijhof (0:53:08)
  • Hardware - Uwe Bernitt (1:21:37)
  • Panel on Open Standards - Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, Bluetooth (1:40:21)
  • Future - Madelena Mak (2:07:29)
  • Closing (2:37:33)

The Open Home Foundation now owns and governs over 240 open-source projects, standards, drivers, and libraries, including Home Assistant - protecting these projects from buy-out or becoming abandoned. To learn more about the Open Home Foundation, visit: https://www.openhomefoundation.org/

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/04/24/state-of-the-open-home-2024
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I don’t understand how the Open Home Foundation “owns” home assistant.

The individual contributors own the copyright in the code. What exactly does OHF think it actually owns? Merely a brand name?

This is not a criticism, mere curiosity.

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I watched the whole stream, thanks for all the good work!
I’m a bit curious about the choice you explained that the AI hardware should be separate from the hardware on which home assistant runs.

The AI hardware would not be so cheap as you point out. So I would want to make use of it as much as I can, by not only having it run e.g an LLM but also have it run home assistant together with the frigate add-on etc. which will also run very fast on such powerful hardware.

So hopefully you could explain a bit why it should be separated rather than leaving us the choice.

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Don’t suppose there’s a chance of a written summary so we don’t have to watch a 3-hour video just to get the key points? :slight_smile:

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If you have the video downloaded you can probably run it through some AI thingy that will spit out transcript.

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Or just click the transcript button.

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I love the naming of the Open Home Foundation - Fantastic play on words and perfectly describes the mission just with the title itself!

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The name is already taken

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Different use so not a ip problem I think but yeah, wonder if they were aware?

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Yes not in the same area of operation at all. I know of the NZ Foundation because I am a NZer and I work in an adjacent profession. It comes up pretty near the top of a Google search, but maybe because I am in NZ.

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It’s because of the Code Contribution Licence. Home Assistant Governance [updated] - Home Assistant

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That doesn’t confer ownership.

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Still, is it not a bad idea to keep using CLA (Contribution Licence Agreement) Is not really in the spirit of free AND open source software?

Can the choose licence no be inherited from the project without forcing a CLA to be signed?

So maybe consider changing it so that do not have have to sign a CLA when contributing code but still require use same licence(s) as the existing project, would that not be more in the spirit of free AND open source software?

At least developers will refrain to contribute if have to sign any CLA, check out these references:

https://drewdevault.com/2023/07/04/Dont-sign-a-CLA-2.html

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

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You do realize that blog post was from 7 years ago?

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Yep, and it is still valid. Watch the above linked video by Jeff that he posted 1-day ago and referenced that same blog post.

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I meant the HA blog post linked in the message you quoted. CLA is there since 7 years ago, if it was going to stop contributors from contributing, HA would not be what it is. And CLA in HA does not mention Nabu Casa, contributors are not giving copyrights to a commercial company.

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