Digital sovereignty with FOSS

This talk presents the critical topic of digital sovereignty, emphasizing its importance for nations, organizations, and individuals to maintain control over their digital infrastructure, data, and assets. The speaker discusses Europe's current challenges in the AI sector, highlighting its dependency on big tech and the implications of global geopolitics such as conflicts affecting supply chains. They suggest that the only way forward for Europe is to invest in its own digital capabilities and infrastructure, particularly through the promotion of open source technologies. The session outlines the necessity for self-reliance and proactive measures against potential vulnerabilities presented by external dependencies. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of cybersecurity, net neutrality, and the need for a robust open digital ecosystem to safeguard European interests.

[music] Hi, welcome. Thank you for uh being here. Uh let's talk about digital sovereignty, a topic that is all the rage these days uh together with AI, I guess. But um AI wasn't a thing really 10 years ago, was it? But uh digital sovereignty also wasn't a thing that it should have been on the agenda but it wasn't. So um but you know as they say the

best time to get started with digital sovereignty was 10 years ago and the second best time is now. So let's start with talking about it anyway. So, first things first, uh just because I can't help myself and uh some of my fellow country men in Germany, they have a tendency to pronounce the word a bit differently or like you know, so a lot of people say sovereign,

but there is actually no I at the end anymore. So, it's digital sovereignty or sovereignty. Okay, but just so it's out of the way. Now, predictions are hard, especially when they concern the future. But uh here's a bit of an outlook like nine 10 years ago 10 in the future not ago um 2035 if we do nothing Europe will be behind having failed to invest in AI

infrastructure uh using proprietary as a service and closed AI big tech has absurd absorbed all interactions between 8 billion humans or then is maybe nine uh and California, Washington and China are the only states or countries that are able to afford universal basic income. Other nations are being downgraded and piling up sovereign debt. Um you think this is a very grim outlook? Yes. But why do I

say this? Like today the combined worth of big tech these five companies is 15 trillion US add Nvidia which isn't you know considered big tech well of the classic five but now is one of the big tech companies adds another 5.5 4.5 trillion I mean obviously these values fluctuate a bit with the value on the stock market and they have instant access to more than half of

humanity and just to compare the German GDP is around $4.6 trillion a year. Uh and Germany is the third or fourth largest economy in the world. Right? Now, obviously I know this is comparing apples and oranges, you know, the GDP, compare that to the stock market value of companies, but just to put it in perspective, right? These six companies are valued more than Germany produces in a

year. Okay? Yeah, thanks to Yan Lashell, I don't know if you know him, for the inspiration for this one here. So, uh um this was the title page of the economist British paper in 2018 already eight years ago and it said the battle for digital supremacy. You know what I find disturbing in this picture? Where is Europe? He's not even there, not even in the background. Okay.

And if you look at what Kyouli is saying, so Kyouli is a leading researcher on AI. He has served as a co-chair uh of the World Economic Forum's global AI council and was named Times 2023 list of the most the 100 most influential people in AI. So he's kind of knows what he's talking about. And uh he said there's no hope for Europe in the AI sector.

This was also eight years ago. I don't think it has really changed or improved. You know, eight years obviously is a long time in tech, but yeah. Has anything big come up in Europe? I don't think so. And uh also just just to put us in perspective, in 2023, Nvidia sold 550,000 H100 chips. And the largest clusters in Europe are in Germany with 10,000 chips and in

France 1,000 chips. Wow, what a discrepancy here. And uh just a a few weeks ago I um I I listened to an interview with Erica Brussia, the former COO of um GitHub, and she said, "Everything in AI comes down to chips and electrical power. If you want to be one of the winners in this market, you need to ensure you have access to both. And um okay,

again Europe AI, I mean we have access to it, but we don't produce it of our ourselves like really in a big scale. And electrical power is always a bit of a problem and it's very costly and it's one of the key factors that is uh hindering our our industry, right? So [clears throat] and now let's look at this worrying sequence. Um America first. What I mean

here is this is under Trump won before Biden and then COVID happened and in Europe we realized we can't even produce face masks. Most of our pharmaceutical drugs come from other countries like for example India is big on this and uh then the war happened uh at the European borders or in Europe you know Russia attacking Ukraine and now we have Trump too and it's America first

again but now this time America first against China and Europe is completely left on its own. Now there are a lot of what if scenarios that I find worrying. It says so what if there is a conflict between China and Taiwan uh then the supply chain stops right Taiwan produces a lot of semiconductors integrated circuits computers and other electronic components and obviously you know you see how

vulnerable the whole supply chain is with what's going on in uh the straight of hormones right now then what if there is a conflict between North and South Korea South Korea makes a lot of memory chips then that's there is a problem what if the US a who is our natural ally has been for a long time is all of a sudden not our ally anymore. Um

what happens if an overseas server goes down or um there's a proprietary app that suddenly shuts out entire countries on a geopolitical whim. So this lack of certainty is driving governments everywhere to find self-reliant solutions to put the steering wheel back into their hands. Not just in Europe. By the way, I just talked to someone from Japan and they said, "Yeah, we don't want actually to invest

a lot more with Microsoft things." Yeah. So, another example, the US can degrade their functionality of the fighter planes like the F-35 or F-16 through software and network control. So they, you know, we have these planes, but if someone in US says, "Yeah, Europe, we don't really want you to use them anymore." Then u they mean they they can't like do it in real time. Yeah. But

they can uh features like mission data files, radar, other crucial system through uh blocking software updates and they could potentially just disable our fighter jets. Yeah. Okay. And one more last thing maybe. Um the you you may may or may not have heard of the sanctions against the international crime court from the US government. Um th this is an example that suggests that Microsoft temporarily restricted access

to mail services for the ICC's chief criminal prosecutor Karim Khan. And u this highlighted the potential vulnerabilities linked to foreign service providers. Yeah. Okay. Oh, and the cloud act. Let's not forget the cloud act. the cloud like cloud in capital letters. You know the US uh law that requires US companies to hand over data that is under their control. Even if Microsoft says well you guys this

is in Europe the data servers are physically located in Europe. If it is under Microsoft control, they will have to give over the data if the US demands, if the US government demands and the users in Europe that they don't even need to be uh made aware of this. Okay, so a nice picture. So digital sovereignty uh is a thing for all these reasons and more. So

what is it? is the ability to um for a nation, organization or individual to have control over their digital infrastructure, data and digital assets and to operate independently and securely in the digital realm. And essentially it it means it's the about the power to make decisions about technology and data rather than being reliant on or controlled by other entities. Okay. And there are a lot of definitions

of digital sovereignty but more or less along these lines. Now there are many areas of digital sovereignty and one is data and cloud computing and a lot of people actually reduce it to this but it's far more than just that. Uh it's also about the physical infrastructure where are the data centers and the networks. Uh where does the hardware come from? Uh then the connectivity access to

the internet in a reliable way. Net neutrality, right? Somebody controls the internet, obviously they have all the power. Net neutrality needs to be there as well. Cyber security and cyber security is arguably the most important aspect of digital sovereignty because it serves as the foundation for protecting data, a nation's data, individual's data, infrastructure, communications network from cyber threats. Okay, cyber security. Not going to talk about this

now but this is as I said arguably the most important thing identity management artificial intelligent and software and now software again is a big thing uh a big aspect operating systems and business software and uh let's look into this a bit more closely so free and open source software is more and more seen as a key to digital actually key I would say right in other words

it's about owning and governing your digital destiny so uh here's software um on the left we have operating systems and IT infrastructure so windows office suite teams and all this then on the right tools middleware utilities you know software used by engineers and developers to design test and build software and hardware and in our case Mercedes-Benz automotive of industry also uh graphics uh for vehicle design simulation

for software crash tests and so forth right uh then business software that is all the software that's used to manage a company's business operations you know CRM ERP accounting HR systems everything like this and then incar software for us in the automotive industry again another important aspect so infotainment navigation advanced driver assistance systems, engine control units, ECUs, overthe-air updates, all of these things. Software that runs directly

in the vehicle and controls its functions. Okay, so just I mean assume you are probably familiar with this, but just to you know recall software means a lot. this guy, Paul Michael Romer, he is best known as the chief economist of the World Bank and for co-receiving the 2018 uh Nobel Prize in economics and for his work on in in endogenous growth theory. And so he had

just this is just a couple months or so ago an interview with a big paper in Germany the time the times. Yeah. And so uh he he talks about a lot of he makes a lot of interesting points I think. So in in 2021 the US president Joe Biden he established a cyber security committee in response to various cyber attacks on the United States. And it turned

out that a series of errors made in Microsoft's Azure cloud platform were to blame. Um, and Ror says that one should not only avoid the Windows operating system, but also Microsoft servers altogether because he says they're not safe. And the scary thing is that the Trump administration abolished the cyber security committee again. So this is like uh abolishing the National Transportation Safety Board because you just don't

really want to know why so many plane crash planes crash. I don't care. Um so this situation is intolerable, right? You can't rely on the United at the moment anyway. Yeah, maybe it was a serious mistake to rely on the private sector alone in this matter. So, for example, MA, right? Facebook, Meta earns its money from people using its services like Facebook or Instagram a lot. You

know, the longer people are on these platforms, the more money they make. So, it doesn't care about people being satisfied or happy just to stay on the platform. And what's the most reliable way to keep people on a platform that is to incite people against each other and that's why we have uh such a big division in our society and not just in Europe um across the

world basically you know all the societies that use social media so much and I have I have actually read a couple of books about this I I like psychology and um so like a little hobby and and it's it's really uh the usage of social media makes people unhappy like bottom line and heavy users of social media when they cut down they get happier again and that's

because of this because ma wants people to stay on the platform so it creates all these upsuring and I mean all the you know the populists on the rise worldwide that's because of this sorry to say right but So we don't need such social media platforms. How social is it anyway to incite people against each other? Okay. But anyway, so um Borma argues don't leave the future

solely to Silicon Valley. Uh Europe should declare its freedom or digital independence and leveraging open source to prevent societal division by business models like the mentioned mas. and uh he said Europe should become a hub for open and regulation to sec to in um sorry to ensure a secure information system. So he uh brings up Airbus as a great example of collaboration across countries in Europe and

he says you should probably do something like this again for the digital realm. uh let's look at Denmark. You all know this flag now. A few months ago, most people didn't know this flag, but you know it now. Anybody know the flag? Greenland. Exactly. Thank you. Um, yeah. So, what I don't need to do dive into this really, but the thing is that Denmark said, "Okay, what

could the US do to us? What could a president in the US do to us really?" I mean not military invasion but um like take away Microsoft from us like for example they tell Microsoft hey you can't do business in Denmark anymore. So he probably could do this, but he has a much more effective instrument. And so Denmark investigated what can he do? And so the US

president could declare a national security emergency and ban Denmark or any country from receiving security updates as of now. And obviously that will create a problem. Not today, not tomorrow, but probably in a week. You have a serious problem. And so Denmark said this is we can't we can't do this anymore. So they are now not changing everything all at once, but they're doing a lot of

um tests and in in several of their offices and ministries they're switching over from Microsoft to for example Libra Office and Linux and uh really wants to replace it and they said if it doesn't work you know we'll go back but we will give it a shot and there are a lot of state governments in France and elsewhere that have already done this. the ICC, the the

crime court, they're switching to um to Open Desk, for example, as well as a as a an answer to this. Yeah. National security. Did you you probably heard that uh Trump is building this big ballroom next to the White House or as an as a another building connected to the White House. A judge stopped it a few weeks ago and said, "Hey, you're you can't this is

not your private property." Yeah. Uh and Trump said it's a national emergency to build the ballroom. Okay. Like with the logic, we built uh missile systems in there as well. So we need the ballroom for national emergency security reasons. Okay. So there is a bit of a paradox uh when I say digital sovereignty and open source. What do I mean by this? So the problem is or

the paradox is that the ecosystem we're relying upon for our independence is predominantly under American stewardship from core governance bodies like the free software foundation or uh open source initiative creative commons and so forth and also development platforms like github and gitlab um so the goal is self-determination but the needed infrastructure is built and managed elsewhere now github is the biggest platform for open source GitLab probably

number two. GitLab of course does exist in an open source version. So maybe that's a bit of an advantage. I mean I to be honest not saying move everything away from GitHub or GitLab, right? Not saying that because they're actually two really nice platforms for software development, right? But so um what is what is the reason for the concentration in the US? The US tech ecosystem has

evolved through a positive feedback loop and favorable conditions. You know, for example, access to investors, a lot of money, a large domestic market, relaxed data protection regulations, businessfriendly policies. But also, uh, here's heads up. Most open- source contributors are likely European. It depends a bit on the statistics. It's not exactly clear, but it looks like most open source contributors come from Europe at least something, right? with

uh probably also maybe Chinese or it's a close call in the US probably number three India and Africa catching up. So the recommendations here or my recommendations are to have a clear view of the existing open-source ecosystem to understand why of it is so much concentrated in the US the things I mentioned but you know look into it more deeply and then support European open source organizations

as well as a lot of small and medium enterprises and I'll get to that in a moment and independent companies. Yeah. and simultaneously foster a healthy, vibrant and balanced global open source ecosystem based on European values and mutual respect. So, you know, when I say one of the favorable conditions in the US is relaxed data protection laws, I'm not saying, hey, we need to do away with

our good data protection laws. We just need to maybe make it a little better. Uh, but all you know, that's what I mean with European values. data protection is a is a European right uh is a European value I would say. yeah, I'm also by the way I'm not saying that we should abandon um all proprietary solutions right um they have a right to exist as well

and I think a vibrant healthy technical ecosystem needs both right so um here an example and sorry about the slides I don't know what happened here um there so here you see this is Ola Kelenos he's the CEO of Mercedes-Benz and he's signing a memorandum uh a letter of intent sorry um behind him on the on this side is the the prime minister of Bad Rutenbeck the

state where you know Stutgard the headquarters of Mercedes is located and so Hola Kellen and also the CEO of Bosch and and then Porsche was and the University of Kazoui and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and they signed a letter of intent to strengthen the open-source infrastructure in our state Bittenbach and the goal is for the state government and the small and medium enterprises to learn

open-source practices from larger companies like Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Porsche, Porsche and so forth. Yeah. Because see the thing is we as a big company you know we have a legal department we can understand all the license requirements that come with open source and everything around it but the small enterprises they can't right so we invite them to knowledge transfer sessions and say hey this is how we do

it maybe here use it um let us help you okay I think this is a really good way how the state government facilitates knowledge transfer for the better good of everyone involved. So another thing uh now we're we're coming to the positive sides. Yeah. So um the EU sovereign tech fund there's a study by open form Europe. In case you don't know it, open form Europe is

a Brussels-based nonprofit think tank which um yeah explains the merits of openness in computing to policy makers and communities across Europe. and uh they came up with this study and uh you know the result is we need to fund Europe's open digital infrastructure. uh there is a chronic underinvestment and we should modeled it after the German sovereign tech fund sovereign tech agency or to a degree anyway

because that's a good example have something like that in Europe and uh so the ask is here 350 million euros for seven years which isn't exactly a lot of money on the big scale and uh so identify the Europe's most critical open source dependencies maintenance security, you know, because if you don't fund this sustainably, then it's foreseeable that the critical components u will degrade and this is

the infrastructure that we rely on. Okay. Um we have uh like two of our colleagues, two of our executives, Marcus Usberg who's our chief software engineer and u Marcus Richard, he's our um our what's his exact title? Well, he's in a software defined vehicle. He's the vice president of digital car technologies, I think it was called. Um, so they wrote the forward and we also a colleague

of and myself we contributed to the the content and now we're promoting this you know or the open forum Europe is promoting this and uh so TB Kleiner he's a EU from the EU commission he will also give a talk I'm not sure today or tomorrow about uh this or he will include this as well I think. So the good thing is you know the politicians they're

now listening like you know a year ago they were like oh what's this digital sovereignty thing what's open source and a year later at the last open form Europe's policy summit they like we need this it's very good so let's see so what does this all mean for us so basically uh support and promote open source solutions wherever you can uh utilize fost to reduce dependency on

individual vendors and especially important actively participate in foss projects that are relevant to the company. Uh the Linux Foundation just came out with a new study on the return on investment of uh open-source participation, active participation and turns out that the return on investment is three to five times of um what you put into you know active participation like contribute back than when you just use it.

Okay, for example, because you have to maintain forks and so forth. Okay. U search for that study. It's a it's very interesting. Um yeah, launch open source initiatives of yourself to set standards and drive innovation. So as Mercedes, we have just a month ago published our open-source foss disclosure portal under the Eclipse Foundation. It's uh if you look, it's called Eclipse Duko Diso. So that's a Japanese

word for disco, you know, disclosure portal. We call it disco, but disco is not a name. You can actually put a brand name on it or put a like a, you know, have it as a trademark. Thank you. So, Dizuko, if you're if that's a thing in your company, uh, sbomb management, look into this tool. I think it's it's quite nice and contribute back obviously, um here

are some more examples. Software defined vehicle at the Eclipse Foundation. Probably many of you have heard of it because it's also a track here. Uh so that I think is a very promising thing than open source rev toolkit at the Linux Foundation or or server again at the Eclipse Foundation. uh just to make sure you don't misunderstand not everything can or should be open source, right? Uh

As I said, proprietary systems are still there for a reason and and not every proprietary thing is bad obviously, right? But companies should I think my recommendation is companies should rate their systems according to maybe three criteria. So this is a a tendis suggestion. Tendis is the um what's called the ospo of the German public entities. Yeah, send zis. So uh three criteria with which you can

rate your system um your system. So the freedom to switch portability vendor independence and then uh number two the ability to shape or custom design or develop a system and number three the ability to influence or participate. Yeah. Um I won't go into details because I mean that's a whole talk in itself right [snorts] but uh you you know go over your especially critical systems rate them

according to these criteria and then you see where you stand with your digital independence and it's probably not very good but then you can start working on it. Maybe you can switch systems from one to another. Um then of course you know migration costs are a thing and so forth and so forth. Yeah. But uh then you can go from there. Remember every procurement decision is a

decision for the future right? So especially when you make new procurement decisions uh keep that in mind. So um as I mentioned open source is also is not just about consuming obviously it's about giving back as well and here some voices from two prominent people in our organization on the left you see Katherine Leman she's the CIO of Mercedes-Benz and she said uh already a while ago

you know a healthy open source culture is a a very smart entrepreneurial investment in the future and social responsibility at the same time and then the before mentioned Magnus Ersp chief software engineer or chief software officer he said of course open- source software is not a one-way street for every piece of code we use we have a responsibility to contribute something as well and uh I'm going

to here this is the summary of the talk opens Europe's digital sovereignty uh runs on open source and quoting Gabrieli Columbo from the Linux foundation he said uh Europe's Digital sovereignty will not be built behind walls but in the open. Okay. And with that I leave you and thank you for your attention. I'm still here for a few questions. Thanks very much. So if you have questions

I think there's probably a microphone here. >> Yeah. Thank you for a great presentation. So the case that you described before in I think it was Denmark about uh administrations going open source. Uh this already happened like 20 years ago in Spain. There is a study case for that. Uh in short, it sucked. It was horrible. And I mean they went for Linux and for Libra Office

and all that. And essentially they said this is terrible. We don't want to use it. Please give us uh Microsoft Word and Excel back. So I don't want to bring down the room here now [laughter] with this thing. So my question to you is what is the the driver? What do you think will be the driver for these things to improve and be good enough? Because I

think the driver in this case was money. There was not enough investment to make uh liver office good enough. There was not enough investment to make Linux good enough for the circumstances. So how do we change that this time? Where does the the let's say the push come to bring developers and to bring people into all these initiatives so that they don't suck again and >> yeah

yeah okay very good question may I ask uh in Spain where was this exactly >> sorry this was in the region of extremadura more or less but in south of Spain >> and yeah they went I believe they even made their own Linux distro it was called um uh open sorry Libra Linux or >> li office >> Libra Office but then they also had their own Linux

distro uh maybe >> okay >> I can't remember the name right now >> but yeah like the teachers didn't like it the people in the administration didn't like it it wasn't good enough uh >> thing I completely understand that so what will be the driver I think the driver now is the necessity because more and more people are realizing this is needed um also prices I mean

so Microsoft raised their prices for companies 50% no 40% last year and 30% again this year and they can do this why obviously because they have the monopoly okay um but so just um have you ever heard of so Libre office is a one thing open desk from the tend is one thing and another thing I would like to mention is open cloud have you heard of

that yeah and so uh I just had a talk with Frank Khalichek who's CEO of Open Cloud uh a Next Cloud, I'm sorry, Next Cloud. Um and and he also had you know we asked him that question like you know but people like the look and feel of Microsoft and it's hard for them to switch. He's like yes that's completely understood. That's why you know nextcloud is

not um trying to be too different so that people can understand and work with it right away. So I think these are all factors that will contribute to uh more and more people and companies change. Yeah. And then put money into it so that it will become better and better. Yeah. Thanks. And there's a question here. Um yeah, I was you mentioned the impact of big tech

um and looking at those same organizations of big tech companies and their their potential influence. What are your thoughts about their involvement with open source nonprofit foundations? So if your foundation is dependent upon those same big tech companies, all you've done is potentially inserted one degree of separation from the same dependency. >> So I'm curious your thoughts around >> A very good point because um so we're

at an Eclipse Foundation event and the Eclipse Foundation uh gets its money from the members. So especially the strategic members but also the other members, right? They pay smaller amount. strategic members are pay pay more now Google just joined and um so as Mercedes-Benz tech innovation we are also strategic member and I think that's great news you know I love to have Google at the table but

when now you have more and more and more of these big tech companies as strategic members you know it means it's good for the Eclipse Foundation more money but then you know more big European companies need to show up as well to you know balance uh the whole the sheet right and so Google also by the way you know they're giving the close financial money to develop

trainings so that's good they they do play a good role as well right I so I don't want to be misunderstood as saying they're all bad uh because you know Microsoft I think is not a bad system what they develop and everything um yeah so it is a bit of a balance right essentially Do you have a different opinion or do just okay just wondering right? Yeah.

Um so see Microsoft I think and they they understand that Europe wants to move relying solely on big tech and and so I think they're also opening up a bit more. Maybe maybe they don't see the need yet. I'm not sure. Hope that answers a bit what Yeah. >> Yeah. So, I have two points I want just to add to the span Spanish example. Don't forget Munich.

>> Munich. >> Maybe you can tell something about why it's failed in Munich. >> Why it's fa I don't know why it's failed >> Okay. >> Um but I think Munich is doing quite a good job in open source, isn't? I mean, I I know that years ago they tried something which failed. I don't know why but yeah but I think now they're back on on on

open source track again. >> Okay. And then and the second thing is about the strategic partners. So as I saw it and remember it all strategic >> diffult word >> partners are um businesses right >> for the Eclipse Foundation. >> Yes. Um uh well there's also like the European Space Agency for example I mean it's a business but you know semi right >> yeah are there any

momentum that countries are going to become partners >> of the Eclipse Foundation. >> Yeah. Or other open source foundations. >> No. So other open source foundations are are uh associated with but they are they are not strategic members. right? They can be uh okay now I'm not I'm not myself I mean I mean I'm on the board for the Eclipse Foundation but I'm not um you know

employee of the Eclipse Foundation so all the details uh forgive me if I'm not 100% sure but so I think the um other foundations can become a member but they're associated members I think is what it's called right and then uh also I think a number of universities and other public entities are associated members numbers as well. I'm wondering which European company could uh stand against Google

Ma or whatever when all of them they become strategic me members right >> oh if you're strategic member your voice is the same as from anyone you know I mean one vote is one vote yeah and there are also some committ representatives and contributing members who don't pay but they're elected and their vote is Yeah. So, thanks Ramirez. >> So, thank you. Um uh a comment to

the uh Munich um thing. The product uh the the project there failed because of politics. So, at the end of the day, it was lobbying by Microsoft and the um mayor of the of Munich changed. So there was a new mayor and the new mayor said hey Microsoft come to us uh set up your headquarter or some parts of like some important infrastructure in the area of

Munich and we switch back that that was the main problem. Um Demir later on gave an interview in one of the German um magazines, IT magazines and he was saying this thing like in Munich it was about money about saving money and he was in 10 years or in in the future it will come back as a sovereignty issue. >> So that that was the the the

point. They also tried to make their own uh Linux distribution which I don't think is the best idea to do but they optimized also a lot of software behind that. So it's not just switching but it's also policy and it's training of the employees because every new software is a change regardless whether it's open source or it's it's it's closed source. So um you have to do

all three things right. Um >> yeah thank you but also yeah I mean as you say train your employees that's why something like nextcloud is also trying to be as close to what you are familiar with so they you know they're not such high training costs that's that's one thing and yeah city of Munich okay good thank you for for uh this and but I know they're

now really talking a lot about open source again at the city Munich council like I I know a couple people from the Ospo Munich even has an possible and they're quite engaged. >> Thank you very much for the presentation. Um have kind of two very related questions. The first one obviously the the elephant in the room the AI the tools that we mostly use in the industry

today are if unless you work at a company like Google the tools are going to be hosted by some other thirdparty company. There's no great open source AI model. There's nothing that runs locally on on my machine that that matches the performance of the top models. >> Yeah. So h how do you actually foster the building of a a open source AI model that performs similarly to

the top proprietary one so that people have an open source alternative >> and then additionally you know even open source stuff in in Eclipse Team we leverage GitHub and GitHub actions and all this stuff that's great but it's Microsoft proprietary as part of building the JDK right so how do to even at the Eclipse Foundation make sure that the vendor lock in isn't there with tooling like

GitHub. >> Yeah. So the so the first question is with the AI how do you foster that? I I'm not an AI expert. I mean I'm an IT guy so but I'm I'm not deeply involved in the space in from a development point of view is what I mean. Um, so there was the case with the Chinese AI system that was open source that for a moment

threatened to break everything and then didn't really. But I think that was one example that, you know, the power of developing something together in open source could potentially stand up to the big models. So I'm I'm not exactly sure what is needed that it will really be the same or better but here I'm kind of hoping that something will come up but what we can do as

Europe is just foster such initiatives um with you know what I mentioned earlier um with favorable conditions also obviously with money I mean in the end money will be needed with a sovereign tech fund and things like this. Yeah. So that's That's kind of my take on it. Yeah. Any more questions? No. If not or if something comes to mind later, I will be here. Uh you

can approach me and just poke me. And other than that, uh oh, wait. Um c can can I take a picture of you? Like, you know, that's what the that's a thing these days, you know, at concerts. they always you know do so everybody cheers yours. Awesome. Thanks very much.