diff --git a/requirements/audio.txt b/requirements/audio.txt
index 9077f4c4..a0085772 100644
--- a/requirements/audio.txt
+++ b/requirements/audio.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-espnet==202204
+espnet>=202204
 #tts
 h5py
 inflect
@@ -8,7 +8,8 @@ lxml
 matplotlib
 nara_wpe
 numpy<=1.18
-protobuf>3,<=3.20
+# tested on version before 3.20, expecting no breaking change going forward
+protobuf>3
 ptflops
 pytorch_wavelets
 PyWavelets>=1.0.0
@@ -21,5 +22,5 @@ torch
 torchaudio
 torchvision
 tqdm
-ttsfrd==0.0.3
+ttsfrd>=0.0.3
 unidecode
diff --git a/requirements/multi-modal.txt b/requirements/multi-modal.txt
index 5c149aa1..71a31988 100644
--- a/requirements/multi-modal.txt
+++ b/requirements/multi-modal.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-fairseq==maas
+fairseq
 ftfy>=6.0.3
-ofa==0.0.2-3.6
+ofa>=0.0.2-3.6
 pycocoevalcap>=1.2
 pycocotools>=2.0.4
 rouge_score
diff --git a/requirements/nlp.txt b/requirements/nlp.txt
index 5407c713..4c881909 100644
--- a/requirements/nlp.txt
+++ b/requirements/nlp.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 http://ait-public.oss-cn-hangzhou-zmf.aliyuncs.com/jizhu/en_core_web_sm-2.3.1.tar.gz
-sofa==1.0.5
+sofa>=1.0.5
 spacy>=2.3.5
diff --git a/requirements/runtime.txt b/requirements/runtime.txt
index 1fcce7ff..9b133548 100644
--- a/requirements/runtime.txt
+++ b/requirements/runtime.txt
@@ -6,13 +6,14 @@ filelock>=3.3.0
 numpy
 opencv-python
 Pillow>=6.2.0
-protobuf>3,<=3.20
+# tested on version before 3.20, expecting no breaking change going forward
+protobuf>3
 pyyaml
 requests
 scipy
 setuptools
-tokenizers<=0.10.3
+tokenizers
 torch
 tqdm>=4.64.0
-transformers<=4.16.2,>=4.10.3
+transformers>=4.10.3
 yapf