IBM, Red Hat announce $5B Lightwell for open source security
IBM and Red Hat just announced Project Lightwell, a massive $5 billion push to make open-source software safer.
They're starting with the Maven/Java ecosystem and plan to bring their AI-powered security tools to other platforms like PyPI and npm.
Daniel Steinberg, founder and maintainer of cURL, pointed out that while AI speeds up coding, it's also overwhelming maintainers with bug reports, making things a bit overwhelming.
Lightwell uses AI to fix vulnerabilities
Lightwell uses AI to spot and fix vulnerabilities, acting as a bridge between big companies and open-source communities.
The fixes suggested by IBM's AI will be checked by real engineers, so project maintainers stay in the loop.
The plan is to work within existing supply chains, not create new ones, and offer commercial subscriptions that make things smoother without losing the spirit of open source.