The scope of that commitment is defined by OIN’s Linux System Definition, which covers both the Linux kernel and an ever-growing set of adjacent programs that are now critical to modern infrastructure. The Linux System definition page explicitly anchors the 2.0 framework, distinguishing 2.0 Participants from those still on predecessor releases of the license.

Over the last 18 months, OIN has systematically broadened the Linux System to cover more of the stack that enterprises actually deploy, from cloud and observability to automotive and IoT. Recent updates pulled in cloud‑native components such as Istio, Falco, Argo, Grafana, and Spire, alongside existing coverage for Kubernetes and OpenStack, and added Apache Atlas and Apache Solr on the enterprise data side.

Networking, embedded, and automotive coverage have been beefed up with packages like OpenThread, agl‑compositor. and kukusa.val, reflecting the surge of Linux‑based systems in cars and connected devices. OIN describes these Linux System expansions as incremental, conservative additions designed to keep pace with open source innovation without destabilizing the cross‑license baseline that members rely on.

OIN turned 20 in 2025, and it used the anniversary to underline the scale behind the 2.0 shift: community membership has grown to more than 4,000 participants from 157 countries and virtually every industry. Collectively, OIN community members now control more than 3 million patents and patent applications that are cross‑licensed royalty‑free within the Linux System scope.

As Keith Bergelt, OIN's CEO, explained, "For over 20 years, our mission has not wavered. We’ve protected open source, reduced patent litigation risks; provided an exclusive cross-license through our evolving Linux System definition; supported key open-source projects; contributed leadership and insights to the open-source ecosystem; empowered the continued growth of Open Source; and offered a suite of defense strategies for our global community of 4,000+ and growing members."

The OIN also established and funded, with Unified Patents, the Open Source Zone. This organization has helped invalidate or review dozens of harmful patents since 2019. 

Today, needing more funding, OIN 2.0 has introduced its first fee structure. This was forced on the OIN because patent troll litigation cases increased by 20% in 2024, and each case costs between $2 and $4 million to fight. 

In a statement, Michael Lee, Google's Director and Head of Patents, explained, 

“The unparalleled success of open source has created a shared responsibility to ensure its future. OIN 2.0 represents a necessary evolution in how we collectively steward this resource. By transitioning to a shared, community-driven funding model, we ensure that OIN remains sustainable, robust, and capable of protecting the open-source commons.”

These new fees still cost companies with less than $10-million annual revenue and individuals not a penny. Even the largest companies, those with more than $500-million in revenue, only pay $24-thousand a year. This provides potent patent protection at a dirt-cheap price. There is no automatic enrollment in OIN 2.0. Existing OIN members must sign up for OIN 2.0.

So far, 129 companies and groups have joined OIN 2.0. These range from tech giants such as IBM/Red Hat, Google, and Microsoft to small community open-source groups such as GNU Parallel, The FreeBSD Foundation, and The Document Foundation (LibreOffice).

For developers, vendors, and users, OIN 2.0 effectively raises the bar for would-be patent aggressors by binding more participants, in more jurisdictions, into a single non‑aggression pact around a broader slice of the open source stack. OIN is also pushing to lower the friction of joining: its membership form and 2.0 license can now be executed entirely online through its regional portals, reflecting a shift from back‑room IP deals to a more transparent, web-first enrollment process.

From here, the success of OIN 2.0 will be measured less by splashy announcements than by what doesn’t happen: Patent lawsuits that never get filed, trolls that look elsewhere, and open-source projects that can ship without an in‑house patent war chest. For an ecosystem that now depends on Linux from phone to car to cloud cluster, that kind of peace may be the most important news of all.

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