alt Hacker NewsEuropean Commission issues call for evidence on open source
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Subsidiarity has been a key building block of the EU and has failed the EU for unexpected reasons. Subsidiarity was pursued for accountability and to make the EU less centralized - decisions should be made at the lowest, most local level possible, with central authorities only stepping in when a task cannot be effectively handled locally. However, it means that here in Sweden govt bodies are all individually moving to Azure, because each one makes that local decision in their best interest. The same thing has happened all over the EU - and very few govt bodies would ever take the risk of investing in using EU cloud or data platforms. We need public procurement to help kickstart life into the Eurostack.
I feel like now, more than ever, the time is right for the EU's move to open-source to succeed.
Linux Desktop is now simply better than Windows, by far. Open office is good. There are many high-quality, commercially supported open-source products available now, developed by full-time, highly talented engineers.
There's every chance that this will work & breaking up oligopolies is great for everyone, not just Europe.
I wrote about this recently if you're interested: https://budibase.com/blog/updates/eu-digital-sovereignty-and...
It’d be a shame if MS was compelled by the current US administration to shutdown EU users of CoPilot/365/whatever. Whole agencies within governments lose all of their data and can barely function.
A move to alternatives is an imperative! I hope it works for them and stimulates their tech sector.
The EU has Schleswig-Holstein (a German state) as an example; office software and email replaced by open source alternatives. Look overthere, I would say. But overthere is a politician who actually understands what he is talking about.
I don't feel the need to provide governments/politicians with open source software who think like this: "open source – which is a public good to be freely used".
Start understanding how this works, because your American and Chinese counterparts do a better job at this.
By the way, don't come lazily asking for input. Go out proactively and find the answers yourself.
Europe does not need more open source, it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry.
It doesn't matter if the email platform a government uses is open source, but it should be able to pick a local alternative. It does not matter if the e-ID or payments app is running on an open source mobile OS, but it should be possible to run it on a non-US one.
Policy may help the European software industry, at least governments should actively work on getting away from their Microsoft addiction. Open source may be one of the options, but it is not the right model for all types of software.
Blindly preferring open source may kill otherwise viable local software businesses.
My view is that there is commodity software and niche/specialized software. You find commercial solutions for both. But OSS is great for commodity software.
Everything becomes a commodity eventually. There's a lot of niche software that then goes mainstream, gets imitated by others, and becomes important to a wide range of sectors. A lot of that software usually ends up with very decent OSS alternatives. If it's worth having in OSS software form, usually somebody ends up working on it.
A lot of OSS projects are already leaning heavily on contributions from individuals and companies inside the EU. That's a good thing for the EU and something to stimulate and build on.
What the EU should do is keep an eye out for commodity software where it relies on non eu commercial software. Identify key areas where that is risky, e.g. communication software, IOT, or finance. And then stimulate members to switch to OSS alternatives if they exist and invest in the creation/support of such alternatives if they are important. OSS software doesn't just create itself, it needs backing from companies which could use the support in the form of grants.
That could include support for non EU OSS projects. There's nothing wrong with OSS from abroad. As long as this software is properly governed and vital to the EU, the EU should ensure those projects are healthy and future proofed. It should ensure local software companies get the support they need to do the right things here. This should ensure projects that are important don't run out of funding. And the EU can stimulate OSS development into strategic new areas with incentives. And make sure that EU companies that back this are successful internationally. This turns the tables on other countries maybe depending more on EU sourced software. The EU doesn't have to follow; it can lead.
If the objective is "Sovereignty", as clearly stated in the context, then Open Source is potentially a good strategy, but in itself not sufficient. E.g. Switching from Windows Server to RHEL gives you an Open Source initiative, but leaves you (arguably less, but still) dependent on the US.
For Open Source to work "Sovereign" you need to establish an local independent EU maintenance, development and distribution ecosystem for the specific packages that can operate autonomously and independent of upstream.
We'll see how it goes this time.
If they once again go for creating their own forks, instead of financing development of existing software then I'll know the initiative failed.
Also imho their 'questions' mentioned in the comment kinda feel like they have answer baked in - like it's foregone conclusion.
Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of OSS.
As a South American, it’s striking to see how the current U.S. administration has forced other countries to confront the risks of not having their own digital infrastructure.
And this isn’t just about software or the cloud. What happens if tomorrow the U.S. forbids Apple from selling iPhones outside its borders? Or starts requiring built-in backdoors or kill switchs?
Scenarios like these raise a deeper question: could this push the most powerful players, the US, EU, China, and India to eventually rebuild entire technology stacks from scratch in the name of self preservation?
Could this mean the end of a globalized world?
Did people here see the Cory Doctorow thing a few days back about DMCA and "Article 6 of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive"? https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition Basically without open source, the rest of the world will have to keep paying a tithe to American companies, and hence tax in the USA.
Don't know if they will get valuable feedbacks but yes, what is needed as always is money. Ever by financing projects or buying solutions that would develop them.
As said by someone else, not do the usual wasteful:
- Create a big global project with a tender directed at bullshit consulting companies and big groups. - Giving millions/billions to recreate a crappy version of something instead of pushing existing solutions.
Also, I have the feeling that an important point is that "open source" software is Open Source, and the proper solution is to fund good OSS software or stacks wherever they come from and not be short sighted of taking to much care of the dev or project location. Even if obviously it would be better that money goes to European devs)
They should make it easier to run own businesses in Europe, lessen then amount of paperwork and red tape. It's impossible to start a tech business under the amount of bureaucracy they throw at you.
I'd love to give it a go, but to get even started I have to pay accountants, banks, lawyers, pre-taxes, etc before I even have made a single cent.
One of the most useful steps would be to support codeforges like Github on European soil, and development of the ForgeFed project, so that those forges can talk to each other.
So many strategies and initiatives, so little action.
Has the EU commission still not understood that becoming a paid-by Washington lobby group, does not work for Europeans? So, why are they so slow in pushing into action here? Rather than money going into US corporations, have EU citizens work on specific open source projects, many of them, with clear goals. Simple example: libreoffice - improve interfacing with it. ALL governments, universities etc... would benefit from this. Not only in the EU but elsewhere too. I don't understand this insane slowness here, unless lobbyists run Brussels already.
Opensource is a bit more complex than being a "public good". They're focusing on the low cost as a jump starting point, which make me doubt their sincerity/understanding about managing that relationship healthily.
I read the call for evidence. I have a silly question: Where does one go to supply that evidence?
I see some people donating money to open source. I'm currently discussing with my bookkeeper but she says it's all personal, so I pay income tax (in the Netherlands) and then I can donate. Is this really true? Why can't I just give some money to the devs that develop the software I use in my business, as a business? It makes it twice as expensive.
This sounds more negative than I want it to, but it seems like this is missing the forest for the trees. There's absolutely a real problem here and I am fully supportive of projects seeking to address this.
Governments around the world throw public money at private enterprise to solve all of their IT problems. This sounds good, I guess, to the Americans in the room. Until recently the US actually had a great number of "open source" projects -- NASA, NOAA, come to mind (the weather satellites are still going). Open projects, owned by the people -- this is the obviously correct way to do things. You can engage the business sector when it makes sense to do so, but a country shouldn't be run by -- be dependent on -- a Microsoft, or a PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Then they delete the production database and write the people a post mortem about how they'll improve for next time. Then they profit from war crimes that your government even quietly admits are a bad thing occasionally. Then they <if you aren't aware of the UK post office scandal, you should be>.
"Open source" isn't a solution. Free software would be a better look. But the entire world is completely dependent on IT systems and goverments don't employ enough software developers. Not "developers" to "refresh" the UI again, not Autodesk certified Call of Duty Black Ops 9 Micopilot Copilot 666 developers -- normal boring software developers -- public servants.
Make it dull. It's your people you're fucking with. Flashy app bad, boring UI good -- it's a tax return.
The thing that should be happening is serious public sector software development. By the people, for the people. Keep it in-house. I shouldn't have to say to keep it open. It belongs to the people.
I think I'll use this opportunity to piggyback my opinion about [1] on my response to this call for evidence.
[1] https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-andro...
Maybe they should start by outlawing Google Play Integrity then. This will immediately make FOSS Android phones more useful in Europe.
I feel bad saying this as open source software developer, but what EU needs is in-house produced x86 compatible cpu to run the software they want as long as they want.
What open source leaders can help them? For example, does Linus Torvalds still feel connected to Europe?
The first comment on the link is much more helpful than the article
https://lwn.net/Articles/1053131/
(yes it seems that comments are subarticles)
The same commission that let every megaco bribe EU officials including the head of eu?
Sometimes I wonder where does the hypocrisy ends.
I'm going to send them my wishlist to see what happens. I'm not optimistic about this, but I'm not pessimistic either and am very curious to see what happens.
If I was better versed in writing and happened to be someone relevant, at the very least I’d support the viewpoint that open source is good for preventing takeovers and software dependencies turning hostile (e.g. Valkey and OpenSearch at least existing) and preventing being held financially hostage in times of uncertainty (e.g. many Linux server side distros are free and FOSS relational DBs won’t bankrupt you).
Yet perhaps far too often people opt for Windows Server or SQL Server or Oracle DB, or other software like that - if you have a good reason to use them, sure, go ahead, but that shouldn’t be your default. I don’t want my tax money to be wasted so much when for at least a significant amount of projects out there, alternatives exist.
I’ve literally heard people say in person that “we need paid support” even when they don’t and while I’m not sure what lead to that behavior of trying to shift blame and cover your own asses, but cut it out. If you need support so bad, get an org for FOSS projects or contribute directly in exchange for it!
This also has implications on development that you normally don't think about - I have personally suffered due to having to use a shared Oracle DB for development (one dev breaking something breaks it for everyone) and not being able to easily setup containers especially because Oracle XE doesn't have feature parity and refuses to run the migrations. Just fucking use PostgreSQL, or even MariaDB.
Same goes for file formats, it made me quite angry when my university mandated that I use Microsoft Office for writing my bachelor's and master's papers, when LibreOffice is mostly good enough (only caveat was the references tracking being kind of jank, but in large part due to the university having very specific requirements in regards to how the references have to be formatted; personally I'd just prefer thesis.md/LaTeX/whatever but I guess we can't have everything). Same for Windows on pretty much all the computers. My country is already poor as shit, we might as well just acknowledge that and stop overpaying for literally everything to greedy orgs. They didn't even buy local and use something like OnlyOffice or paid someone that provides managed Nextcloud hosting or whatever.
I find it endlessly fascinating how governments always get lost in the symptoms of the problems at hand instead of addressing the underlying problem itself.
The EU has no viable software industry because there's no real single market to fundraise from and sell into (no single capital market, no single language market, no single regulatory market, etc).
The lack of domestic EU software/hardware products sits entirely downstream of that issue. The open source community will not magically solve this problem for them.
What if we stopped wasting time on anything that is not solving the core issue. The symptoms will take care of themselves after you solve the disease.
Hopefully they can throw a couple of bucks at the foss things underpinning the internet.
Evidence of what? Of the existence of open source? Of "open source" what? Software? Hardware? Its usage? The the communities behind various open source projects?
I consider much bigger problem dependence on foreign ecosystems and data storages. This is of course useful but I would consider much more efficient some kind of incentives to build domestic alternative to ms office cloud solution which basically run all corps.
Here is what I submitted:
I am a well known FOSS developer.
At one point code I had written protected half the passwords on the entire Internet, and today around a quarter of all HTTP(S) traffic on the internet goes through software I have written ("Varnish").
That, and the fata morgana of retirement shimmering on my horizon, makes it my considered opinion that FOSS is the gift EU does not deserve, and runs a great risk of destroying on first contact.
However, closed source as we know it, is not compatible with an open, free and fair society, so I am more than aboard with the EU's long overdue recognition of FOSS as the way forward and out of the grubby, greedy claws of "Big Tech" and their endless enshitification of our lives.
The kind of FOSS software relevant to this discussion is usually rock steady and dependable in ways much commercial closed software, precisely because of the secrecy, can never be or become.
But the human communities which produces the FOSS software are fragile, fractious, and as a general rule, composed of people who may be great programmers, but who have absolutely no experience, and no interest, in fostering and stewarding stable human communities.
This is literally why there are who knows how many, different "distributions" of the Linux operating system, "window managers", "web-site frameworks" and programming languages.
Therefore the absolutely most important thing for EU to understand about FOSS, is that it probably is as close to the "ideal market", in the sense of economic theories, as anything will ever come: It literally costs nothing to become a competitor.
But that also means that if the EU member countries were to pick, no matter how fair and competently, a set of FOSS software to standardize on, and pour money into the people behind it, to provide the necessary resources to support and sustain the need for IT systems, for all the administrations in the EU countries, that software would instantly stop being FOSS - no matter what words the license might contain, because it would no longer be part of the market.
In other words: EU cannot "switch to FOSS", it would no longer be FOSS if EU did.
At the most fundamental level, the EU has three options:
1. Pick and bless a set of winners, consisting of:
a) Operating system, portable to any reasonable computer architecture. b) Text-processing, suitable for tasks up to a book. c) Spreadsheet d) Email client. e) Web Browser f) Accounting software, suitable for small organizations.
and fund organizations to maintain, develop and support the software for the future as open source, turning that software into infrastructure like water, power and electricity, free for all, individuals, startups and established companies alike, to use and benefit from.
2. Continuously develop/pick, bless and meticulously enforce open standards of interoperability, and then "let the competition loose".
3. Both. By providing a free baseline and de-facto reference implementations for the open standards, "the market" will be free to innovate, improve and compete, but cannot (re)create walled gardens.
To everybody, me included, option two seems the ideologically "pure" choice, because we have all been brought to believe that "governments should not pick winners".
But governments have always picked winners. Today all of EU has 230VAC electrical grids, because EU picked that as a winner, thereby leveling the market to everybody's benefit.
Therefore I will argue, that the wise choice for EU is option three.
First, it will be incredibly cheap, as in just tens of millions of Euro per year, to provide all EU citizens with a free and trustworthy software platform to run on their computers.
Second, it can be done incredibly fast: From EU makes the decision, the first version can be release in a matter of months, if not weeks.
Third, it will guarantee interoperability of data.
Sincerely,
Poul-Henning Kamp
From my experience, people against open source often have buyers remorse. They often paid egregious sums of money for proprietary software that, to be fair, works well and includes enterprise support. When the same someone encounters the same solution but free and open source, they start rationalizing. The difference is mainly marketing, where open source projects have little to no marketing budget and are largely denied by market makers. Proprietary solutions can afford the seminars, thousands of dollars a week on ads, and other perks which increase discovery.
The moral of the story is to be careful listening to people actively tarnishing open source as they are a crowd of bitter people. A tell-tale sign is that they don't talk about the benefits of proprietary technologies such as the level of customer support and technical expertise that comes with the bill and instead only bash on open source.
Very weird to see written "EU open-source sector", because any medium or large open-source project is international and includes many EU contributors.
I don't think of GNU as an "US" open-source project, nor of Linux as a "Finnish" open-source project. That's just laughable.
70 propositions from the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud, written in part by yours truly (in early 2025, i.e. before the "Trump effect" was in full force) and published by the Commission in July 2025:
https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/11798...
The document is also known as "The “Open Source Way to EU Digital Sovereignty & Competitiveness” thematic roadmap".
Earlier discussion (in French): https://linuxfr.org/news/la-commission-europeenne-publie-une...
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Here is the complete list of proposals from the roadmap, translated into English and organised by pillar.
### Pillar 1: Technological Development
- Define technical specifications as open standards for European Open Source cloud, edge and IoT environments.
- Fund interoperability pilot projects that prioritise the use of European Open Source technologies.
- Require all EU-funded digital infrastructure projects to adhere to these interoperability standards.
- Promote and enforce the implementation of open standards throughout the EU.
- Create a ‘European Open Source Sovereignty Fund’ (EOSSF) dedicated to essential projects. [NB: this would now be called the EU-STF].
- Offer targeted grants for the security, maintenance and strengthening of the sovereignty of Open Source projects.
- Foster in-depth collaboration with European academic institutions and Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs).
- Develop a practical guide for public procurement managers to evaluate European Open Source solutions.
- Create sector-specific reference architectures based on European Open Source technologies.
- Launch large-scale demonstration projects to illustrate the practical benefits of European Open Source solutions.
- Produce and distribute comprehensive ‘playbooks’ for the deployment of European Open Source solutions.
- Implement policies to actively encourage the adoption of these reference implementations in public procurement.
### Pillar 2: Skills Development
- Organise industry-focused training workshops with a European emphasis on Open Source tools and platforms.
- Offer targeted training grants to SMEs and public sector organisations for European Open Source skills development.
- Launch certification programmes for mastery of European Open Source technologies and standards.
- Establish EU-funded retraining programmes to help professionals transition into European Open Source roles.
- Collaborate with industry partners to create hands-on learning and placement opportunities in Open Source.
- Offer financial incentives to companies that participate in retraining programmes and use European Open Source.
- Develop a European Open Source resource platform that brings together training materials, best practices, and case studies.
- Integrate European Open Source principles into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curricula from secondary school to university.
- Support the creation of European Open Source ‘centres of excellence’ in universities.
- Develop EU-wide coding competitions and hackathons focused on European Open Source solutions.
- Introduce training on European Open Source business models into vocational training.
- Create vocational training modules for European Open Source project management.
- Establish certification for mastery of European Open Source business skills.
### Pillar 3: Public Procurement Practices
- Launch a consultation with public sector bodies and Open Source providers to identify challenges related to public procurement.
- Make ‘Public Money, Public Code, Open Source First, European Preference’ policies mandatory in public procurement.
- Develop comprehensive guidelines for public procurement to evaluate and select European Open Source solutions.
- Fund demonstration projects showing the success of replacing proprietary systems with European Open Source.
- Establish clear criteria for defining what constitutes a ‘European’ Open Source solution.
- Provide a practical guide for public procurement managers to evaluate Open Source solutions.
- Collaborate with industry and standardisation bodies to develop accessible evaluation criteria for Open Source.
- Create a public directory of recommended European Open Source solutions.
- Encourage public sector organisations to adopt solutions developed under the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative.
- Launch cross-border pre-commercial procurement (PCP) projects focused on European Open Source.
- Create knowledge-sharing platforms for feedback on PCP initiatives and Open Source best practices.
- Actively involve European Open Source providers in the co-design of solutions in the PCP process.
- Publish guidelines to help public sector organisations manage and support European Open Source.
- Promote the active participation of public sector representatives in European Open Source communities.
- Support training programmes for public sector staff on project management and Open Source compliance.
- Engage stakeholders to collaboratively refine and simplify procurement practices for Open Source.
### Pillar 4: Growth and Investment
- Create a European Open Source Investment Platform (EOSIP) to centralise information on funding.
- Organise information workshops for European SMEs and start-ups on how to obtain investment.
- Establish partnerships with private investors to form a network of venture capital funds focused on European Open Source.
- Expand the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative with a focus on Open Source cloud, edge and IoT.
- Regularly assess the impact of funding programmes on community growth and market adoption.
- Allocate dedicated funding to high-impact European Open Source projects that meet strategic needs.
- Develop co-investment models that combine public funds with European private sector investments.
- Launch accelerators and incubators specifically designed for European Open Source technologies.
- Develop an EU-wide branding strategy to highlight the quality and sovereignty of European Open Source.
- Showcase European Open Source successes on international platforms through marketing campaigns.
- Form strategic partnerships with European industry organisations to increase project visibility.
- Establish public-private R&D consortia on European Open Source for high-priority projects.
- Offer incentives for private sector contributions to critical European Open Source initiatives.
- Develop platforms for knowledge exchange and cross-sector collaboration within the European ecosystem.
### Pillar 5: Governance
- Conduct vulnerability assessments for critical European Open Source projects.
- Collaborate with European cybersecurity agencies to develop threat models for Open Source environments.
- Publish findings and best practices from security assessments to the European ecosystem.
- Offer tailored compliance advice to help European Open Source projects navigate EU regulations.
- Facilitate accessibility to Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) certification for European Open Source projects.
- Provide resources and support for the documentation and auditing of European projects.
- Ensure stable, long-term funding for core European Open Source infrastructure.
- Establish mentoring programmes focused on developing European talent for critical projects.
- Create a European Open Source Advisory Board to oversee project funding and direction.
- Require EU-supported European projects to adhere to transparent governance and accountability practices.
- Support European community involvement in Open Source project governance.
- Facilitate community input into European Open Source policy development.
- Publish guidelines on best practices for managing the lifecycle of European Open Source projects.
- Provide resources for responsible maintenance and end-of-life support for European projects.
- Encourage comprehensive documentation and knowledge sharing within the European ecosystem.
One more step in the right direction, good
All the European Commission is interested in is getting software cheaper or for free.
If they were truly interested in freeing themselves from non-EU software, thereby preventing potential interference from (mostly) the US, they wouldn’t have chosen the path of soften the GDPR - that move mainly made the big tech happier.
And don’t even get me started with Chat Control.
To me this is the most amazing thing people that would turn themselves inside out against communism/socialism because of the lies they have been told. When it actually comes down to it are all for communism ie open source
I don't see how EU can develop a thriving software industry with its love for control and regulation.
Politics should never drive technical decisions unless the people involved actually understand the technology. When policy is made without that expertise, open source becomes a political slogan instead of a sustainable ecosystem.
Maybe the EU can develop its own version of Linux OS, just like North Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
-- edit
When legislators start getting involved they will want to inevitably have their "own" version of something and their own SLAs and contracts.
The reason they went with Microsoft/IBM/Oracle and others back in the day for software solutions is; they know on a piece of paper what they are getting, and who they can blame if they don't get it.
With Opensource OS and software, even with auditing and stuff, there is no way to blame anyone apart from end-users. For politicians and bureacracts, that is a scary thing, as they will be the ones to blame (read: asses on the line)
The consultation is great and all but
As someone who has watched on the sidelines how Opensource governance turns projects into hydra monsters (Redhat, Jakarta EE). I wouldn't be surprised in a few years we will have a EU approved OS that is controlled by bureaucracts.
But who knows, maybe they will just become end users of a popular distro and other opensource software.
I agree with others here that focusing your eyes on _using_ open source is, at least, an incomplete view of the problem.
What we (European software engineers) have been arguing, is that software that is funded by public means, such as from universities or institutions, ought to be made fully public, including ability to tweak. Thinking that open source software will help solve your budget and/or political problem is not something we're interested in doing for free. This excerpt here:
> In the last few years, it has been widely acknowledged that open source – which is a public good to be freely used, modified, and redistributed – has
suggests they see it as free candy, rather than the result of love and hard work, provided for free because it's nice. Pay for what you use, especially at the government level.
Of course, I strongly encourage the European governments to invest in open source. And if you're interested in giving money, I'm interested in doing work. Same as ever.