About this talk
This session discusses the significance of open source in Europe, highlighting its fundamental role in fostering collaboration among smaller technological entities. The speaker outlines the European Union's commitment to open source through various initiatives, including a forthcoming open-source strategy aimed at enhancing tech sovereignty and public funding for open source projects. Emphasizing importance in cybersecurity, the speaker notes regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act that promote open source solutions. The talk also covers the development of data spaces and innovative middleware solutions to ensure trustworthy data sharing, alongside initiatives in artificial intelligence. Lastly, the speaker encourages the use of open source in public sector software development to enhance transparency, security, and sustainability.
Full transcript
[music] Good morning. Really happy to be here for day two of OCX and uh indeed very also thankful for for the invitation because uh you may or may not know but open source is really special for the European institutions in Europe. We don't have really big giants in terms of technologies but we have great communities. We have great interactions between smaller entities that work together on the
basis of standards and on the basis of open source. So really this is at the heart of who we are in Europe. We believe also in the values that you find in open source very often which is about sharing which is about transparency which is about being honest about what you're trying to achieve. So in that context indeed we have big ambitions also for open source and
I'm especially grateful for the invitation today by Eclipse because this is one of the foundations that decided to choose Europe and that's also very much today uh one of our objectives you know to make this continent the best place to do technology the best place to develop code that you can indeed develop and use in many many applications from industrial applications to indeed opensource AI. So today
I wanted to flag a few elements in terms of our policies so that you see that indeed it's good to choose Europe but it's also good to get involved in our activities. First of all you may or may not know this but um we've been trying to fund opensource communities and efforts over the past 10 years. uh we are preparing or in fact about to publish uh
in a few weeks time at the end of May an open-source strategy as was just explained. This is part of our tech sovereignity package. So really the attempt to increase and improve the way as Europeans we look at our capabilities and how we can reinforce them. But this means indeed public funding as a starting point to nurture who we are in terms of this R&D open source
communities and with my team you know we made the calculations in terms of all the research that had some opensource elements in terms of the deliverables and we found that we spent actually in terms of public funding from the EU budget about 800 million euros in the past six years. So it's actually quite a substantial element. A lot of this went into uh uh the project we
call next generation internet where we actually supported through small amounts individuals small partners so that they can really develop their activities and contribute uh to to communities but we also have bigger elements one of them and I think Eclipse is is very much involved is also on softwaredefined vehicles for instance where the EU is also supporting there we just created an association It's called EAVA for connected
and automated driving and we really are putting our efforts there also working with Eclipse to develop this somehow the operating system for the cars that we need to bridge them to the next generation and to the next innovations and again working with Eclipse is for us a winning element because we find the communities we find also in Europe the industry we find the expertise And we think
that this is really building a very interesting mix and hopefully very soon we will have breakthroughs and cars uh using this but also as you may know that uh through our regulation we have been promoting open source. One key example is the cyber resilience act. It's about making all our products more secure because you look also at the software component and we gave a special place to
open source in that context. So that really you use the transparency of open source to make software more secure and here as well I think Eclipse is having an important role is organizing the communities making sure that we use foundations to also steer and uh make uh this technologies robust and cyber secure. But we have many more areas where we want open source to strive and to
be an asset for our industry, for our communities, for our technology providers. Data is one example. You know, we are trying to build a lot of data spaces around Europe. And in my team, we are currently funding a technology, a software, a middleware called simple that is precisely trying to use opensource to organize the sharing of data in a trustworthy manner and trying also to develop solutions
so that you can use data in a decentralized manner but actually to share and build very interesting innovation on top. So if you don't know about it, have a look because it's getting really more and more versatile and with this simple solutions, I'm sure you can innovate on top and build a lot of interesting innovation. Now in the area of AI, of course, this is a a
key area also for the EU. again you know we don't have maybe the hyperscalers the giants but through the various entities we have in Europe around AI we are developing very interesting code and I would really invite you also to look at some of the elements in the AI act which again gives opensource a special treatment a special uh flexibility to develop uh you know this these
solutions another area where indeed we want vibrant open-source ecosystems to strive But let me give you a little bit of a preview in terms of what we will announce in our opensource strategy. It was quite an interesting journey because we published earlier this year, you know, an invitation to get comments. It was incredibly popular. We got more than 1,600 contributions in less than one month showing really
the appetite for the open source communities to get recognition but also to pass very clear message. They need support to make opensource not only a shortterm gain but actually a real alternative and that means sustaining the software. That means having resources also to make it secure over time. That's something we we we we hear and we want to have a special facility to that purpose. Not just
nurturing the code but actually nurturing it over time in a in a in a real duration. A second key element was also to recognize open source as a source also of security and sovereignity. Why is it so? Because today you may say there is a lot happening in technology. Why is it that open source could be so helpful? is very simple is that it can help you
to leaprog in the in the case of Europe we miss certain uh you know building blocks in our sovereignty in in our tech stack we want to use open source to leaprog to gain access to the technologies we don't have and this is really we think the strength also of our continent pull efforts together even if we are individually smaller if we bring uh you know the
communities we have actually the best possible technology uh uh in in a joinup manner. So that was a second very strong message look at open source as a way to build sovereignity and in that context we also plan as a result in the strategy to identify where we are today because today they are already open source solutions that are valid that are available and that we should
simply use more. So we will also pay attention to that but we also want to make sure that we identify the gaps and where open source can be the way to cover our dependencies. A third element was also to recognize that the public sector can do more in terms of adopting and using open source. That's something that today is happening. you know here and there you see
municipalities saying enough with Microsoft or with Amazon I want to go more for some open source solutions is happening locally and we have great examples of cities you know from uh Leon to in France to in Denmark you know Arus to cities in in Germany or in Eastern Europe even in Greece showing that you know this can be done but what we want is to scale up
these experiments mentations because it's nice to do it locally. It's even better to do it on a continental basis. So what we will do is actually to help uh governments to make their procurement opensource friendly, you know, give them guidance but we want actually to go beyond this. We want to have in the cloud and AI development uh act you know which will be also a major
piece in our sovereignty uh package. We want to have this I wouldn't say an obligation but almost an obligation to say open money open course open source which means that really whenever the government is paying to develop some software and it's happening with billions of euros really this is a lot of our public spending we we invest in developing software what we want is that each time
this is happening the software should be open source so that someone else can reuse it, someone else can learn from it. So that's something that we want to push open money, open uh source so to say and that's really uh we we think an objective that uh will be hopefully a gamecher also in terms of giving customers to the open source communities not just attention but actually
a business and a market uh to conquer. In that contest we need you. We need really the communities to take these opportunities seriously and we need also open source to be taken seriously. I mean we had a very interesting uh experimentation last week. You may you may have seen uh the commission have this uh you know launch a beta app you know to have age verification. That's
something very important for many of our governments so that they can verify that you know the kids don't go to the wrong places and to protect them overall online. very important for families, for governments alike. So we have put out this age verification app and uh it's open source and guess what the idea was precisely this to test it out. Um and the press you know was
very quick in picking that some hackers had identified flows. But then we explain that's the whole point you know that's what you do when you you go open is that you put it in front of the communities and you make sure that you know through the collective effort we get to a better product we improve and we have all the flaws looked at and I think that
was a very interesting educational message because we were attacked very much saying you know this is not serious your product is not perfect and I think that the second day when we explain how it works people recognize that this is also the nature of open source using communities to make the software better resilience and cyber secure. So we will come back very soon with you know the
the the age verification was what we call the mini wallet you know just an attempt to have a limited element but we see a big opportunity in Europe with the European identity wallet. This is really an identity mechanism. It will it will be also open source and what we really aim for is a little bit what India has achieved with something very similar with ADA to build
around the identification a lot of applications you know from actually taxi app you know to uh things that are used in many areas of everyday life they use this identity mechanism to build on top and to use the internet uh to have a lot of innovation that's what we aim for with this uh eid wallet and really it's open source and it is something that you can
play with as much as you want. So to conclude again thanks for Eclipse for being here for being in Europe and for doing great stuff. Thanks to all of you for participating in these exchanges. There are a few projects uh displayed that actually are benefiting also from EU funding you know in terms of smart cities and these kind of things you can you can see around you.
There are things around softwaredefined vehicles. So stay tuned and get in touch with also our activities because there is a lot of opportunities for open source in what the European Commission is doing. But by and large I think that it's a great momentum now for open source. Open source is getting the recognition it deserves. It's getting really the top level attention. I can tell you I was
in Berlin a few weeks ago at this tech sovereignty summit. Open source was front line really. So it's a momentum today. It's time to seize the momentum and it it's time to show that through open source you can not only invent a great code you you can actually have products and solutions that are competitive, durable and that can be really making a big difference for Europe and
beyond. Thank you very much. [applause] Thank you.
