The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2022

OFE Welcome

Welcome address by the European Commissioner for Budget and Administration

Keynote

Building Public Sector Capacity: Open Source and Digital Sovereignty

In several EU member states’ public administrations, open source and open standards have received increased attention as a potential tool to deal with the challenge of digital autonomy. Open technologies help to increase control and correct over-dependence of a few vendors when managing critical IT infrastructures.

In this panel, the speakers will outline their view of the challenges at hand, such as deploying open source at scale, building community, education, financing of critical/fragile projects, and discuss the different strategies related to leveraging open technologies to achieve digital sovereignty. National efforts related to open source and open standards will be described, with a particular focus on the concept of the Open Source Programme Office. This topic will then be brought into the context of how to build capacity to use and deploy open technologies in the public sector and what role European and global collaboration and network building matters to success.

Break

EU Digital Covid Certificates: How Open Source Opened Europe

The Covid 19 pandemic made it necessary to look for ways to protect people, and to look for ways to support a return to what was referred to as the “new normal” from a Europe that has been struck with lockdowns and confinement. Two key tasks evolved for digital technologies to provide solutions: contact tracing and proof of vaccination and immunity. Policymakers and software engineers started working on these digital tools. The product description of what was required was relatively straightforward: build and roll out a trusted digital certificate fast that is interoperable across borders. The challenge: a digital public service had never before been rolled out at this scale.

In this panel, the speakers will tell the story of what is arguably the best case study in recent years of what value open source brings to European digital public services. The successful roll out of the Covid passes shows how the malleability and flexibility of open source has particular relevance to Europe. The panel will use the success story of the covid passes as a vantage point to look to the future. In what other ways can open source public services bring Europe and the Europeans together? What is it that makes ‘open’ the key to a digital Europe that is truly cross-border? And are these benefits limited to the public sector or for that matter to Europe?

Lunch Break

Securing the Software Supply Chain

The security and integrity of Open Source software, and the supply chain that supports it, are increasingly recognized as a critical digital infrastructure for society as a whole, and government awareness is raising about its national security implications. How might public sector resources and policies, and private sector collaboration, contribute to improving security in the software supply chain, without threatening the vibrant creative processes in OSS that have created so much public value?

Keynote

Minister Montchalin: Report from the French Presidency

The Simple Economics of Open Source: 20 Years

It has been 20 years since the publication of ‘Some Simple Economics of Open Source’ by Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole, marking an important step in the growing impact and importance of open source.

During this session the panelists will discuss if the motivations for individuals and companies to contribute to OSS have changed over 20 years and how measuring open innovation has evolved ever since.

Open Hardware and Chip Shortages

The European Union has experienced chip shortages which affected businesses, citizens and researchers alike. EU’s dependency in the critical area of semiconductors is a challenge that needs to be solved by collaborative action on technological, business and policy sides.

European policymakers have started to increase the ambition to strengthen the European semiconductor industry and the region’s critical digital infrastructures, products and services. Open chips have the potential to be beneficial in terms of their adaptability, speed and potential for increasing digital sovereignty in several sectors, including automotive industry, edge computing, data storage solutions, aerospace, energy or health. There is a need to leverage these benefits and allow European industrial partners to innovate and become major players in this competitive market. In this session, our speakers will discuss if openness can support these goals and provide for a less fragmented and more innovative semiconductor landscape in the EU.

Break

Keynote

Open Source & the Green Transition

Climate change and the green transition is the grandest challenge facing us today. As the European Commission has stated, “Europe must leverage the potential of digital transformation, which is a key enabler for reaching the Green Deal objectives”. With open source making up the majority of code today, it will be crucial for achieving efficiencies at scale. Beyond the code itself, new ways of working in an open culture is fundamental to drive change at scale and speed. For us to navigate fast and at scale to tackle its complexities we need to rethink how we work together. No company or nation state can face this alone.

Our panelists will speak about the new ways to enable open collaboration, with a particular focus on the energy and data center sectors, where open technologies already play a large role in driving change.

Open Source and the Grand Challenges

The European Commission’s study on the economic impact of open source suggests that there are large benefits associated with investments into open source – not just for an individual company, but at a societal level. At the same time, Europe is in the process of rolling out some of the largest public investment schemes in recent history with much of it focused on digital transformation. Adding to this, industrial policy is back in the political discourse.

The speakers of this panel will take a broad societal perspective, and discuss questions such as: What could an industrial policy for open source look like? Is it even desirable? What would it aim to achieve?

Moreover, looking at some of the large societal challenges we face today globally, many of whose solutions critically depend on collaboration. When identifying those challenges, the panelists will discuss what we can learn from or where we could even use open source as a common collaboration infrastructure?