Dear OSI supporters,

Every March, Open Education Week invites us to reflect on something that will feel familiar to everyone in this community: the idea that knowledge is most powerful when it is freely accessible, adaptable, and shared. It is a principle that open education and Open Source have always held in common, and this month’s newsletter is a good occasion to explore that connection more deliberately.

The open education movement did not emerge in isolation. The legal and technical infrastructure that made Open Educational Resources possible — Creative Commons licensing, open platforms, shared governance models — drew directly from the Open Source tradition. Tools built on Open Source software made open education operational, not merely aspirational. That history matters today, as generative AI introduces new pressures and new possibilities for both communities.

OSI’s recent work reflects this intersection in concrete ways. Our decision to join the Apereo Foundation in signing the Open Letter to the Higher Education Community was a natural extension of our mission: if Open Source is foundational to education, research, and the public good, then higher education has both an opportunity and a responsibility to treat it as a strategic asset rather than a commodity. You’ll find more on that, and on Google Summer of Code 2026 — a program that embodies the mentorship and knowledge-sharing values at the heart of both initiatives — in the pages that follow. There is more to explore this month as well, and I think you’ll find the connections worth reflecting on.

As always, thank you for being part of a community that understands openness not as a feature, but as a foundation.

Warm regards,

Deborah Bryant

Interim Executive Director, OSI 

News from the OSI

OSI Joins Apereo Foundation in Calling on Higher Education to Reclaim Its Digital Future

The OSI has signed the Open Letter to the Higher Education Community, joining a growing coalition of educators, technologists, nonprofit leaders, and institutions calling for renewed leadership and intentional investment in open solutions across higher education.

Other highlights

• Google Summer of Code 2026: Advancing Open Source Through Mentorship
• OSI Adopts SPDX IDs for License URLs

OSI in the news

• React Moves to Open Governance (TechCrunch)

Other news

News from OSI affiliates and community

• Alpha-Omega: Open source registries don’t have enough money to implement basic security (The Register)
• Apereo: Reclaiming the Digital Commons: Apereo Helps Launch Call to Action for Higher Education
• CNCF: State of cloud native 2026: CNCF CTO’s insights and predictions
• Creative Commons: AI’s Infrastructure Era: Reflections from the AI Impact Summit in Delhi
• Digital Public Goods Alliance: Ensuring “Openness” in AI is a Beacon of Trust, Not a Slogan: Reflections from the India AI Impact Summit 2026
• Digital Public Goods Alliance: The 2025 State of the Digital Public Goods Ecosystem
• Eclipse Foundation: Open-source foundation celebrates birthday: The Eclipse Foundation turns 20 (Heise)
• European Open Source Academy: EU’s Digital Sovereignty Depends On Investment In Open Source And Talent
• European Open Source Academy: Publication of EOSA Masterclass: Building and Sustaining Open Source Impact
• Free Software Foundation Europe: 22 events, one message: Maintainers Matter and we love Free Software
• Kaiyuanshe: Chinese Open Source: A Definitive History (Kevin Xu)
• Linux Foundation: A New Chapter for Linux Foundation Europe Leadership
• Mozilla Foundation: Behind the Velvet Rope: The AI Divide on Display at the India AI Impact Summit 2026
• OpenForum Europe: The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2026: Key learnings and takeaways
• Open Future: European Open Digital Ecosystems and Digital Commons
• Open Future: What Delhi revealed about the challenge of AI sovereignty
• OpenInfra Foundation: OpenInfra at FOSDEM 2026: Community, Collaboration, and Continued Momentum
• Open Invention Network: Open Invention Network Unveils “OIN 2.0” to Enable the Next Era of Open Source Patent Protection
• Open Knowledge Foundation: What the India AI Summit Leader’s Declaration Means for the Future of the Digital Commons (Tech Policy Press)
• Open Source Endowment: Launch of OSE, a community endowment dedicated to sustaining the critical open source projects the world relies on
• Open Technology Research: Shaping a Shared Research Agenda for Open Technology Research: Join Our Global Consultations on 19 March
• OSTIF: Sovereign Tech Agency and OSTIF Security Audit Report
• United Nations: Launch of the new United Nations Open Source Portal
• TODO Group: TODO Group 2026 Strategic Goals

Research and white papers

• Duke University / MIT Science Policy Review: Technical and ethical debt in the AI fair use crisis
• Mozilla Foundation / Trinity College Dublin: How Big AI Developers are Skirting a Mandate for Training Data Transparency
• Block Open Source: Open Source as Critical Infrastructure
• Linux Foundation: ROI for Open Source Software Contribution

News from community members

• Shuji Sado: Can You Relicense Open Source by Rewriting It with AI? The chardet 7.0 Dispute

Surveys

Global Consultation to Develop a Shared Research Agenda

Open Technology Research (OTR) is hosting a series of three one-hour roundtable consultations, each held at a time designed to be accessible across different regions, to help us develop a shared global research agenda. The sessions will be structured around a short set of questions shared in advance, with facilitated discussion to draw out the most important insights.

Open Source Software & Hardware Training

The European Open Source Academy has shared a survey with the goal of identifying critical skill gaps to directly inform the design of targeted training programs. By participating, you ensure future courses are built to bridge these specific gaps and meet real-world sector needs. All findings will be published as Open Data to benefit the entire community.

Events

Upcoming events

• FOSS Backstage (March 16-17- Berlin)
• All Things AI (March 23-24 – Durham)
• OCX (April 21-23 – Brussels)

Check the top 50+ Open Source conferences of 2026 that the OSI is tracking, including events that intersect with AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and policy.

Thanks to our sponsors

New sponsors and renewals

• Automattic
• Capital One
• See all sponsors

Interested in sponsoring, or partnering with, the OSI? Please see our Sponsorship Prospectus and our Annual Report. Please contact the OSI to find out more about how your company can promote open source development, communities and software.

Support OSI by becoming a full member

Hundreds of individuals and organizations worldwide join as members and support as donors or sponsors of the OSI. They trust in our neutral stewardship of open source licensing and our role in enabling a global community. Get involved!

The post Open Education and the Shared Roots of Openness appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

In 2025 alone, our most-referenced license pages received significant traffic:

• MIT: over 1.5M pageviews
• Apache 2.0: 344K pageviews
• BSD 3-Clause: 214K pageviews

With this level of usage, even small inconsistencies in URLs, naming, or structure can have outsized effects across the ecosystem. Ensuring that license identifiers are clear, stable, and aligned with widely adopted standards is essential.

That’s why we’ve taken this step to standardize OSI license URLs using SPDX identifiers, while carefully preserving compatibility with the many links that already exist across the web and tools. The full set of OSI-approved licenses continues to be available at:

https://opensource.org/licenses

Why SPDX?

SPDX (Software Package Data Exchange) license identifiers have become the de facto standard for referencing software licenses in a consistent, machine-readable way. They are widely used across the Open Source ecosystem: in package managers, compliance tools, SBOMs, and documentation.

By adopting SPDX IDs in our URLs, we are aligning OSI’s license pages with the identifiers that developers, organizations, and tools already rely on.

Preserving the Past with Redirects

We recognize that OSI license URLs are deeply embedded across the web: in documentation, legal texts, source code comments, blog posts, and academic papers. Breaking those links would create unnecessary friction.

That’s why all legacy license URLs continue to work. We’ve put appropriate redirects in place so that older links now resolve cleanly to the corresponding SPDX-based URL.

In short: nothing breaks, and everything becomes clearer going forward.

Summary of License URL Changes

To support the transition to SPDX-based identifiers while preserving long-standing links, we standardized license URLs and implemented redirects from legacy formats. The table below summarizes the types of changes applied across the OSI website.

Improved Consistency and Clarity

Using SPDX identifiers brings several benefits:

• Consistency: One canonical identifier per license, across OSI’s site and beyond.
• Clarity: License URL matches what developers see in tooling and manifests.
• Interoperability: Easier integration with compliance, scanning, and automation tools.
• Future-proofing: A stable foundation for continued improvements.

License Data Available via the OSI API

In addition to updating our website URLs, OSI license data is available through our API, making it easier for developers and organizations to consume authoritative license information directly from OSI.

This supports automation, integrations, and new use cases that depend on accurate, up-to-date license metadata, without scraping or manual maintenance.

Looking Ahead

This update is part of our ongoing effort to modernize OSI’s infrastructure while respecting the history and stability that the Open Source community depends on. Standardizing license URLs using SPDX identifiers helps ensure that OSI remains a reliable, relevant, and interoperable reference point for Open Source licensing in the years ahead.

As always, we welcome feedback from the community. If you spot an issue or have suggestions for further improvements, please let us know.

The post OSI Adopts SPDX IDs for License URLs appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

To address this challenge, Open Technology Research (OTR) is launching a global consultation process to develop a shared research agenda for the field. The goal is to identify the most important unanswered questions, coordinate research efforts, and help guide collaboration between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working on open technologies.

As part of this process, OTR will host a series of roundtable consultations on 19 March 2026, with sessions designed to accommodate participants from different regions. These discussions will focus on identifying the most significant knowledge gaps and ensuring that future research supports real world policy needs, including areas such as access to data, economic impact, and long term outcomes of open technology adoption.

The initiative builds on years of dialogue within the open technology research community, including the Open Forum Academy Symposium, where participants have repeatedly highlighted the need to move beyond isolated studies toward more coordinated and policy relevant research programs. The shared agenda developed through this consultation will help inform future calls for research proposals and shape upcoming Open Technology Research Symposiums.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is proud to collaborate in this effort alongside OpenForum Europe and the Open Knowledge Foundation. As open source becomes foundational to public sector digital strategies and digital public infrastructure, strengthening the evidence base around its impact is essential for informed policymaking and sustainable adoption.

Researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community members working on open technologies are encouraged to participate in the consultation process or contribute through the intake survey.

• Read the original announcement and learn more about the initiative: Shaping a Shared Research Agenda for Open Technology Research: Join Our Global Consultations on 19 March
• Join one of the global roundtable consultations on 19 March and contribute to the discussion.
• Complete the intake survey to share your perspective on the most important open research questions, even if you cannot attend a roundtable.

The post Help Shape the Research Agenda for Open Technology appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

The letter issues a clear and timely call to action. Higher education must reclaim strategic control over the digital infrastructure that underpins teaching, learning, research, and scholarship. At a moment marked by increasing vendor consolidation, rising costs, and growing concerns around data privacy and institutional autonomy, Open Source software and open standards offer a proven and values-aligned path forward.

Why This Matters

Higher education has long been a driving force behind foundational open technologies. Projects such as Linux, BSD, the Apache web server, Python, R, PostgreSQL, and TeX/LaTeX emerged from universities and publicly funded research institutions, while platforms like Moodle and Sakai LMS were created specifically to support teaching and learning. Some of these open solutions now underpin much of the internet, research, and educational infrastructure used around the world.

Yet, as the open letter notes, dependence on open technologies has grown, while strategic investment and stewardship from higher education have declined. Institutions increasingly rely on proprietary platforms built atop Open Source foundations, often without a long-term strategy to sustain, govern, or evolve the commons they depend on.

OSI’s mission is to protect and promote Open Source software by stewarding the Open Source Definition and supporting healthy, sustainable Open Source ecosystems. Signing this letter aligns directly with that mission. Open Source is not simply a development model. It is also a governance model that preserves choice, transparency, and shared ownership of critical digital infrastructure.

Open Source and the Core Values of Higher Education

Open Source is uniquely aligned with the fundamental values of higher education.

• Academic freedom and autonomy: Open Source reduces vendor lock-in and gives institutions the freedom to adapt tools to their pedagogical and research needs.
• Transparency and trust: Access to source code enables scrutiny, security review, and accountability. These are essential qualities for systems that handle student data, research outputs, and institutional decision-making.
• Collaboration and knowledge sharing: Like scholarship itself, Open Source thrives through peer review, shared improvement, and collective stewardship.
• Long-term sustainability: Open solutions lower the total cost of ownership over time and help ensure institutions are not stranded by acquisitions, shutdowns, or shifting commercial priorities.

As higher education enters an era increasingly shaped by data-driven systems and artificial intelligence, these values matter more than ever. Control over digital infrastructure is inseparable from control over institutional missions.

From Consumption to Co-Creation

The open letter challenges higher education to move beyond passive consumption of educational technology and toward active participation in building, governing, and sustaining open solutions. This shift, from customer to co-creator, unlocks benefits that proprietary models cannot offer. These benefits include digital sovereignty, meaningful collaboration, and the ability to innovate in alignment with academic values.

Apereo’s launch of this call to action emphasizes that this effort is not about rejecting all proprietary tools. It is about restoring balance and intentionality. Open solutions must once again be treated as strategic assets, supported through coordinated investment and shared governance.

A Shared Call to Action

By signing this letter, OSI joins a global community committed to strengthening the digital commons that higher education relies on every day. We believe that Open Source is foundational to education, research, and the public good, and that higher education has both an opportunity and a responsibility to lead.

We encourage institutions, educators, technologists, and partners to read the letter, add their names, and participate in shaping a more open, resilient, and equitable digital future for higher education.

Open Source built the digital foundations of higher education. Together, we can ensure those foundations remain open, trusted, and sustainable for generations to come.

The post OSI Joins Apereo Foundation in Calling on Higher Education to Reclaim Its Digital Future appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

For more than two decades, GSoC has helped thousands of developers make meaningful, sustained contributions to free and Open Source software, and its goals closely align with OSI’s mission to promote and protect Open Source through education, collaboration, and community building.

Why GSoC Matters to OSI’s Mission

At its core, OSI exists to steward the Open Source Definition and to ensure that Open Source communities remain healthy, sustainable, and inclusive. Google Summer of Code directly supports these goals by:

• Lowering barriers to entry for new contributors to join Open Source projects
• Building long-term sustainability through mentorship and skills transfer
• Encouraging open development practices, transparency, and collaboration
• Investing in the next generation of Open Source maintainers and leaders

By providing structured mentorship, clear milestones, and dedicated time for contributors to learn, GSoC helps Open Source communities grow in ways that last well beyond a single summer.

OSI Affiliate Organizations Participating in GSoC 2026

A wide range of organizations are participating in GSoC 2026, including many that are part of the OSI affiliate network. These communities represent the diversity and global reach of Open Source, spanning infrastructure, programming languages, data, science, security, and creative tools. Participating OSI affiliate organizations taking part in Google Summer of Code 2026 include:

• AboutCode
• Apache Software Foundation
• CNCF
• Debian
• Drupal Association
• Eclipse Foundation
• FOSSASIA
• FreeBSD Project
• GNOME Foundation
• Joomla!
• KDE Community
• LibreOffice
• Linux Foundation
• MariaDB
• Mifos
• OpenMRS
• OpenStreetMap
• OSGeo (Open Source Geospatial Foundation)
• Python Software Foundation
• Rust Foundation
• Wikimedia Foundation

GSoC 2026 Timeline

Below is an overview of the official Google Summer of Code 2026 timeline:

• January 19: Mentoring organization applications open
• February 3: Mentoring organization application deadline
• February 19: Accepted mentoring organizations announced
• February 19 – March 15: Contributors discuss project ideas with mentoring organizations
• March 16 – March 31: Contributor application period
• April 30: Accepted GSoC contributor projects announced
• May 1 – May 24: Community Bonding period
• May 25: Coding officially begins
• July 10: Midterm evaluations deadline for standard 12-week projects
• July 6 – August 16: Main coding period
• August 24 – 31: Final evaluations for standard projects
• November 2: Final submissions deadline for projects with extended timelines

This structured timeline emphasizes early engagement, strong onboarding, and continuous feedback, all of which are essential to successful and sustainable Open Source collaboration.

Conclusion

Google Summer of Code 2026 is more than a summer program, it is a long-term investment in people and communities that power Open Source. By supporting mentorship, knowledge sharing, and real-world contributions, GSoC helps ensure that Open Source remains vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable.

OSI is proud to see its affiliate organizations participating in GSoC 2026 and continuing to model the values at the heart of the Open Source movement. We encourage contributors, mentors, and organizations alike to engage with the program and help shape the future of Open Source, together.

The post Google Summer of Code 2026: Advancing Open Source Through Mentorship appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

Dear OSI supporters,

In late January, members of OSI staff and board members  joined developers, policymakers, foundations, and civil society leaders in Brussels for FOSDEM 2026 and the series of policy and community events that surround it in what is now known as EU Open Source Week. Each year, FOSDEM offers a reminder of something fundamental to our mission: while open source communities may gather in particular places, the open source software licenses we steward are a shared global asset.

Much of the conversation this year focused on Europe’s evolving digital policy landscape, from security and compliance to sustainability and public infrastructure. The questions being worked through in Europe today may shape open source practice worldwide, underscoring the importance of continued open, participatory governance and international cooperation.

We’ve written more about OSI’s participation at FOSDEM, and the conversations we were part of throughout the week, in our recent blog post. I invite you to read it for additional context and detail.

As you’ll see throughout this newsletter, OSI’s work continues to be informed by engagement across regions and communities.  Your ongoing support and interest helps us maintain a global perspective in complex times.

Warm regards,

Deborah Bryant

Interim Executive Director, OSI 

News from the OSI

Open Source at the Heart of Europe’s (and the World’s) Digital Future

From Code & Compliance and the EU Open Source Academy Awards and Policy Summit, to multiple FOSDEM devrooms, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) engaged directly with the community throughout the week, convening conversations, contributing expertise, and reinforcing the importance of open governance in an increasingly regulated digital landscape.

Other highlights

• Europe’s Open Source Opportunity: our vision for the EU Open Digital Ecosystems strategy
• Ensuring the Long-Term Sustainability of ClearlyDefined: OSI and AboutCode Sign MoU
• OSI Joins OpenForum Europe and the Open Knowledge Foundation to Officially Launch Open Technology Research Initiative
• 2026 OSI Elections Update
• Open Source Software, Public Policy, and the Stakes of Getting It Right

Other news

News from OSI affiliates and partners

• CNCF: The Best of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon: Watch the video!
• Creative Commons: Building the Future in 2026
• Drupal Association: 25 years of Drupal: what I’ve learned
• Drupal Association: Funding Open Source for Digital Sovereignty
• Eclipse Foundation: From Code to Compliance at FOSDEM 2026
• Eclipse Foundation: Open Source Software Stewards and CRA Whitepaper
• Eclipse Foundation: The Eclipse Foundation and ECSO formalise cooperation through new Memorandum of Understanding
• European Open Source Academy: first edition of the EOSA Magazine
• Free Software Foundation Europe: A strong close to 2025 at 39C3; a promising start to 2026 thanks to your support
• Linux Foundation: 2026 Global Events Program, Advancing Open Source AI and Enabling Community-Based Innovation
• Matrix Foundation: Matrix is quietly becoming the chat layer for governments chasing digital sovereignty
• Mautic: Year in review 2025
• Mifos: 2025 Year in Review
• Mozilla Foundation: State of Mozilla 2025
• OpenForum Europe: OFE Appoints Laszlo Igneczi as Executive Director
• OpenForum Europe: EU’s Digital Sovereignty Depends On Investment In Open Source And Talent
• OpenForum Europe: Connecting Europe’s Open Source Community: EU Open Source Week 2026
• Open Future: Who Controls Europe’s AI Future?
• Open Future: Why Digital Public Infrastructures?
• OpenJS Foundation: Security Program Annual Report 2025
• OSTIF: 2025 Annual Report
• Open Technology Research: OTR Officially Launches to Strengthen Global Research Community
• Python Software Foundation: Introducing the PSF Community Partner Program
• PyTorch Foundation: 2025, A Year in Review and the Road Ahead
• Rust Foundation: How We Invested in Rust in 2025 — and What Comes Next
• Software Heritage: Software Heritage Activity Report: 2025
• Software Heritage: Takeaways: Software Heritage Symposium and Summit 2026
• TODO Group: 2025 End-of-Year Review
• Wikimedia Foundation: 25th Anniversary

Events

Upcoming events

• SCALE (March 5-8 – Pasadena)
• FOSS Backstage (March 16-17- Berlin)
• All Things AI (March 23-24 – Durham)
• OCX (April 21-23 – Brussels)

Check the top 50+ Open Source conferences of 2026 that the OSI is tracking, including events that intersect with AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and policy.

Thanks to our sponsors

New sponsors and renewals

• Automattic
• Red Hat
• MongoDB
• Eclipse Foundation
• See all sponsors

Interested in sponsoring, or partnering with, the OSI? Please see our Sponsorship Prospectus and our Annual Report. Please contact the OSI to find out more about how your company can promote open source development, communities and software.

Support OSI by becoming a full member

Hundreds of individuals and organizations worldwide join as members and support as donors or sponsors of the OSI. They trust in our neutral stewardship of open source licensing and our role in enabling a global community. Get involved!

The post From Brussels to the World: Open Source as a Global Asset appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

The Open Digital Ecosystems Strategy is the follow up to the European Commission’s Open Source Strategy which expired in 2023, and comes at a time when the European Union (EU) and its member states are seeking greater digital sovereignty, and competitiveness. 

In our feedback, we highlight how we see Open Source as a way to achieve that goal, and the pitfalls that must be avoided.

Europe is uniquely positioned to benefit from Open Source: figures from GitHub show EU developers being the largest group of contributors to Open Source projects globally. In short, Europe has a hidden silicon valley in addition to its already flourishing Commercial Open Source sector. There is lots the EU can do to fully leverage the benefits of Open Source.

Our feedback focuses on what can be done, both at a non-legislative level, and opportunistically at a legislative level (where there is already a law in the works). 

Funding for Open Source software

Our top priority was to ensure the continued funding of Open Source software by the EU. The EU’s Next Generation Internet programme (which is also about to expire) has funded a plethora of Open Source projects including Mastodon, KDE, Gnome, Nextcloud; OnlyOffice, Collabora Online, Libreoffice, CryptPad, Kdenlive, PixelFed, Lemmy, Pretalx, Wireguard, many more. The direct benefits of that funding have been enormous for the FOSS ecosystem, and we wanted to ensure they continue.

To achieve this, we proposed the creation of an EU Sovereign Tech Fund, covering a wide range of different types of Open Source projects, including projects critical to European users, businesses and Open Source communities, promising early-stage Open Source innovations, and Open Source projects of strategic value to the EU. 

In addition, given the increased adoption of Open Source software by public administrations in the EU, we proposed a subfund to support the development of specific features requested by European Public administrations in Open Source software solutions, improving those solutions to spark further adoption.

Finally, we called on the Commission to develop Open Source Attestations under the Cyber Resilience Act: these attestations are designed to be a way for Open Source foundations to raise money for the development of their projects while reducing the compliance burden for companies who use their projects. If implemented correctly, we see these as a sustainable way to fund Open Source projects, including Open Source components. We will keep working with the Commission on achieving that outcome.

These proposals also significantly benefit the EU, generating economic growth, accelerating the development of alternatives to dominant ICT solutions, and strengthening the EU’s cyber resilience.

Supporting Open Source companies

The EU also currently has a keen interest in supporting Open Source companies and developing businesses around Open Source. We believe this can be a path to sustainability for Open Source projects, and that many projects are already at a level of maturity and quality that allow them to outcompete proprietary incumbents. For that reason, we also focused part of our feedback on supporting Open Source companies at all stages of development.

We called on the EU to support Open Source developers who want to build a business around their projects. This could be via grants, but also through education, training and tailored support. We also called on the EU to ensure member states’ tax deductions for R&D can also apply to Open Source software.

Finally, and most importantly, we call on the EU to reform its procurement rules to give Open Source companies a fair chance at winning public tenders. The EU and its member states spend €125bn on procurement of ICT solutions every year, but very little of that goes to Open Source due to barriers in the procurement process. 

We aren’t asking for special treatment: we believe that Open Source can already compete on its existing merits of quality, sovereignty, interoperability and flexibility. What we are asking is that the benefits of Open Source, such as quality, sovereignty, interoperability and flexibility be taken into account in the procurement process.

This won’t just result in better, more competitive procurement, it will also help Open Source companies to scale up in Europe, combatting dependence and creating new jobs.

Strengthening knowledge of Open Source

Finally, one gap we have identified in the EU is in knowledge. This includes both knowledge of Open Source in the policymaking process and in the deployment of ICT solutions. Such gaps run the risk of delaying the roll-out of Open Source solutions, or even negatively impacting the development of Open Source communities, projects and companies in the EU, so addressing them is vital.

In our feedback, we highlight how many public administrations are still unsure about deploying Open Source solutions, this despite Open Source seeing growing success in the public sector, with deployments by governments, regions and cities across Europe.  We believe Open Source is ready to compete with and even replace proprietary software, the biggest barrier is not technical: it is social.

The EU can play a pivotal role in overcoming this barrier by fostering knowledge sharing between public administrations on the deployment of Open Source, giving them the confidence they need to deploy and learn from existing deployments.

It is also vital that Open Source is taken into account in the policymaking process. The EU has made massive strides forwards in this area over the last five years, and is clearly seeking to regulate with Open Source in mind. We believe one measure that could help the EU achieve that goal would be the creation of an Open Source expert group to examine policy proposals and highlight potential risks and benefits for Open Source. Such a group could be made up of a core set of representatives of Open Source organisations already in the EU, supplemented by a wide and diverse group of representatives from a variety of Open Source communities.

Finally, in its search for digital sovereignty, it is vital the EU doesn’t confuse independence with isolationism: we’ve recently heard some voices calling for “European Open Source”, but Open Source is by nature a global collaborative effort: it works because people around the world collaborate to make it happen.  One of its core benefits is that the ability to study and fork the code enables the kind of trust and collaboration that lets countries benefit from global expertise while retaining local control. It is vital that the EU doesn’t take actions that undermine that global collaboration.

When it comes to Open Source, sovereignty isn’t a measure of how much of the code was written within your borders, it is defined by how a project is governed, and if you have the capabilities within your borders to sustain and improve it. Strengthening the EU’s Open Source capacity is the best way to strengthen its digital sovereignty.

What comes next?

The EU’s request for input on the strategy garnered over 1600 replies, making it one of the most successful in the EU’s recent history. It’s also a testament to the value of funding Open Source: much of the feedback comes from citizens praising the funding for Open Source and raising how it benefited them.

As the European Commission goes through the feedback, the OSI intends to work closely with them, providing proactive input and feedback for the strategy.I plan to meet with the Commission regularly in the coming months on this and other issues. Looking out for Open Source developers and educating policymakers is at the heart of what OSI does. Want to see more of it? Consider joining the OSI or donating here.

The post Europe’s Open Source Opportunity: our vision for the EU Open Digital Ecosystems strategy appeared first on Open Source Initiative.

From Code & Compliance and the EU Open Source Academy Awards and Policy Summit, to multiple FOSDEM devrooms, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) engaged directly with the community throughout the week, convening conversations, contributing expertise, and reinforcing the importance of open governance in an increasingly regulated digital landscape.

Turning Regulation into Practice at Code & Compliance

The week began on January 29 in Brussels with the Code & Compliance conference, organized by the Eclipse Foundation. The event brought together Open Source leaders, engineers, and policymakers to focus on the practical implications of the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), from compliance and security to automation, standards, and software supply chain trust.

ClearlyDefined Steering Committee members Philippe Ombredanne and Qing Tomlinson presented “Sharing Is Caring: Open Data for Open Source Compliance.” Their session highlighted how open, community-curated compliance data can reduce duplicated effort, improve the accuracy of licensing and security analysis, and enable scalable, automated compliance across the ecosystem.

Celebrating Open Source excellence at the European Open Source Academy Awards

OSI was also present at the European Open Source Academy awards, an event which celebrates outstanding contributions of Europeans to Open Source. Last year, we joined the Academy as knowledge partners. This year, Linux maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman, Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek, Open Science hardware advocate, Dr. Jenny Molloy, Tiny Tapeout founder Matthew Venn, and Software Heritage co-founders Roberto Di Cosmo and Stefano Zacchiroli won awards for their contributions to Open Source! Congratulations to them!

Open Source and Digital Sovereignty at the EU Policy Summit

On January 30, OSI joined public- and private-sector leaders at the EU Open Source Policy Summit, organized by OpenForum Europe. The Summit examined how Open Source underpins Europe’s digital sovereignty, competitiveness, and resilience, with discussions spanning cloud and AI infrastructure, automotive software, public sector capacity, procurement, standardisation, and semiconductor innovation. It was opened by European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen.

OSI Interim Executive Director Deb Bryant and OSI Board Director and Apache Software Foundation president Ruth Suehle participated in the panel “Europe as the World’s Home for Open Source,” which explored whether Europe can position itself as a global hub for Open Source excellence. The discussion examined the interaction between regulation, investment, and research policy, including initiatives such as the EU Sovereign Tech Fund and legislation like the DMA, AI Act, and CRA, alongside the importance of open governance, skills, and institutional capacity.  Deb’s comments included encouraging a participatory culture across all sectors, and advocating for the model of international cooperation that underpins Open Source.

During the Summit, Deb Bryant also joined Astor Carlberg (OpenForum Europe) and Renata Avila (Open Knowledge Foundation) to announce the official launch of Open Technology Research (OTR), a new initiative aimed at strengthening independent research and evidence-based policymaking in support of open technologies.

OSI’s Leadership at FOSDEM 2026

From January 31 to February 1, thousands of developers, maintainers, foundations, and policymakers gathered for FOSDEM 2026, one of the world’s largest free and Open Source software events. OSI played a particularly prominent role across the program.

A highlight was the Open Source & EU Policy devroom, one of the main events OSI organized at FOSDEM. Coordinated by OSI EU Policy Analyst Jordan Maris in close collaboration with APELL, the Eclipse Foundation, the Linux Foundation, Mozilla, OpenForum Europe, and OpenSSF, the devroom offered a full day of high-level discussion at the intersection of Open Source and European digital policy, featuring policy-makers, Open Source advocates, and developers.

The program tackled some of the most pressing issues facing the ecosystem today, including digital sovereignty, public procurement, cloud interoperability, data spaces, platform regulation under the DMA and DSA, cryptography, age verification, standardisation, and the Cyber Resilience Act. Sessions combined policy analysis with hands-on perspectives from developers, foundations, civil society, and public institutions, grounding regulatory debates in real-world Open Source practice.

OSI voices were present throughout the day. Jordan Maris spoke in multiple sessions on topics such as engaging policymakers, the Digital Services Act, and standardisation around the CRA. Simon Phipps, OSI Director of Standards & Policy, contributed to discussions on effective standard-setting and CRA-related standardisation, reinforcing OSI’s leadership in open, implementable standards. Thierry Carrez, OSI Board Director, participated in the opening debate on global collaboration and Europe’s digital sovereignty goals, bringing an international governance perspective to the conversation. Notably there was strong participation from lawmakers such as Alexandra Geese MEP and former MEP Marcel Kolaja, parliamentary staff, European Commission staff, national regulators and even senior figures from European Standards organisations ETSI and CEN/CENELEC.

Beyond this devroom, OSI leaders contributed across FOSDEM’s broader program. In the Legal & Policy devroom, Deb Bryant participated in “Unique Challenges in Elected Governing Bodies for FOSS,” examining the limitations of common governance models and the complexities of democratic structures in Open Source communities. In the Community devroom, Ruth Suehle took part in “Building on Success: Sustainability of Open Source,” exploring sustainability not only as a funding challenge, but also through the lenses of policy, security, and long-term community health.

Additionally, Deb Bryant and Philippe Ombredanne signed a Memorandum of Understanding between OSI and AboutCode at FOSDEM, establishing a new collaborative approach to stewarding and sustaining the ClearlyDefined project. Under the agreement, OSI remains the steward of the project, the community retains governance, and AboutCode assumes responsibility for day-to-day operations, including stakeholder coordination, modernizing the technical stack, and significantly reducing infrastructure costs, all within ClearlyDefined’s existing open governance model.

From Europe to the World: Looking Ahead

Across conferences, summits, and devrooms, one message resonated clearly: Open Source has become essential infrastructure for Europe’s digital future, but its strength depends on thoughtful policy, strong governance, and sustained, global collaboration. OSI’s participation throughout FOSDEM 2026 and related events reflected a deep commitment to ensuring that Open Source remains not only compliant and secure, but fundamentally community-driven, inclusive, and resilient.

What emerged in Brussels was not a Europe-only conversation, but a global one. The regulatory, governance, and sustainability questions being tackled in Europe today will shape Open Source practice worldwide tomorrow. As these frameworks continue to evolve, OSI will keep working alongside developers, policymakers, foundations, and partners across regions to translate European leadership into globally beneficial outcomes, and to ensure that Open Source continues to serve as a shared foundation for trust, innovation, and progress around the world. Software freedom matters now more than ever.

Photo credits: OpenForum Europe, Clara Thebert, Simon Phipps.

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Following extensive discussion and review with the community, the OSI Board has endorsed this new model for OSI stewardship of ClearlyDefined and approved entering into the MoU. This decision reflects a shared commitment by OSI, AboutCode, and the broader community to ensure the long-term sustainability, growth, and impact of ClearlyDefined.

ClearlyDefined Advancements and Challenges

Originally developed by Microsoft and donated to OSI in 2018, the ClearlyDefined project has grown into a global, open database of licensing and related metadata for Open Source software components. Modern applications depend on thousands of upstream components, each with its own licensing, provenance, and metadata. ClearlyDefined makes this information easily available in a consistent, machine-readable, and open manner, helping developers, legal teams, and organizations understand what they are using and how it can be reused.

ClearlyDefined is well adopted across the ecosystem, with contributions and usage spanning companies, foundations, and Open Source projects. The project’s infrastructure has been spearheaded by Microsoft, with organizations such as GitHub, SAP, Bloomberg, and Deutsche Bahn actively participating in its development and evolution. Open Source stewards including the Linux Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation make extensive use of ClearlyDefined to help ensure that widely popular projects have accurate, consistent, and openly available licensing and provenance data.

Over the past years, the ClearlyDefined community has achieved significant progress. Major milestones include the launch of ClearlyDefined 2.0, expanded license coverage through LicenseRef support, and substantial performance improvements. Since 2023, the project has advanced in various ways, including:

• ClearlyDefined 2.0 launch: a major milestone in improving license data quality.
• LicenseRef support: expanding coverage beyond the SPDX license list.
• Conda harvester: adding support for Conda with a focus on Machine Learning and data science packages.
• GUAC integration: providing users from this OpenSSF project with enriched data for compliance and security.
• Performance improvements: substantial optimization for better licensing data request and component harvesting.
• Secure Open Source Program: partnering with this program from GitHub and promoting the participation of Scancode (one of the key projects of ClearlyDefined) to be part of the first batch of recipients.
• Conferences: participation in events like Code & Compliance, FOSDEM, SOSS Fusion, Open Compliance Summit, Open Source Summit, FOSS Backstage, and ORT Community Days.
• SPDX and OWASP collaboration: working closely together with these organizations to advance SBOM standardization.
• Ecosystem: collaboration with adjacent organizations like ORT (OSS Review Toolkit), ScanCode, GUAC, and OpenChain. 
• GitHub adoption: incorporation of 40 million definitions (latest as of 2025) that appear on dependency graph, dependency insights, dependency review, and a repository’s SBOM.
• Linux Foundation adoption: initially covering projects from CNCF, OpenSSF, and LF AI & Data, among others, but which will eventually encompass all 1200+ LF projects.
• New website: featuring comprehensive documentation and resources.
• Open governance model: electing leaders to the Steering and Outreach Committees.

At the same time, the community has recognized the challenges facing the project. ClearlyDefined is not yet self-sustaining. Infrastructure costs remain high, the implementation carries technical debt, and the OSI does not have the technical or financial resources to independently modernize and operate the platform at the scale the community increasingly expects. These realities prompted OSI to explore new options for sustaining and evolving the project over the long term.

A New Collaborative Path Forward

Against this backdrop, AboutCode emerged as a natural and mission-aligned partner. AboutCode is a public-benefit nonprofit with deep expertise in license compliance and Open Source data, and it is the creator and maintainer of ScanCode, one of the core tools used by ClearlyDefined. Importantly, AboutCode’s leadership includes Philippe Ombredanne and Thomas Steenbergen, co-founders of ClearlyDefined and long-standing contributors to the ecosystem.

The newly signed MoU formalizes a collaboration in which OSI remains the steward of the ClearlyDefined project, the community retains governance, and AboutCode takes responsibility for day-to-day operations. Under this model, AboutCode will lead planning, coordination, and execution involving users, adopters, contributors, and partners; modernize the technical stack; and work to significantly reduce infrastructure costs, all while operating within ClearlyDefined’s existing open governance model.

Roles, Responsibilities, and Governance

The MoU clearly delineates responsibilities. OSI retains stewardship of ClearlyDefined, including ownership of the project name, logo, and marks, and continues its role as a convener and advocate for the project. AboutCode is delegated operational authority, but no funding or infrastructure obligations are transferred to OSI under this agreement.

All software enhancements made by AboutCode will continue to be released under OSI-approved licenses, and all data enhancements will remain openly available under open data licenses. AboutCode has also committed to providing regular public updates on progress and to operating the project in full respect of its published governance charter and community-led structures.

The OSI Board views this collaboration as a pragmatic and forward-looking step, one that preserves the open, community-driven nature of ClearlyDefined while unlocking a realistic path to sustainability, growth, and impact.

Growing Trustworthy Open Source Adoption

The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding marks an important milestone, but it is only the beginning. The long-term success of ClearlyDefined continues to depend on an engaged and active community of users, contributors, and adopters. OSI and AboutCode share a strong belief that, by combining clear stewardship with focused operational leadership, ClearlyDefined can evolve into a more resilient, modern, and sustainable platform that serves the entire Open Source ecosystem.

As Open Source adoption accelerates and regulatory frameworks such as the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) raise expectations around transparency and compliance, ClearlyDefined plays an increasingly critical role in helping organizations understand, trust, and responsibly use Open Source software. Driving this work forward is core to the missions of both OSI and AboutCode.

We thank the ClearlyDefined community for its continued contributions and collaboration. We look forward to working together on this next chapter to ensure the continued growth of Open Source adoption in a more transparent, trustworthy, and responsible manner.

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The Open Technology Research initiative seeks to address the gap in understanding around open technology—software, data, and standards—through a sustained platform for research, knowledge exchange, and policy engagement. 

The initiative will host two flagship programs:

• Open Technology Research Network to identify research gaps, connect researchers and policymakers, and convene communities. 
• Open Technology Research Symposium, an annual convening building off the success of OFE’s OpenForum Academy Symposium. Stay tuned for news on the location of this year’s event! 

We invite the OSI community to check out the new website (opentechresearch.org) and sign up for the mailing list to get updates on this work.

Please read the official announcement at: https://opentechresearch.org/blog/press-release-open-technology-research-officially-launches-to-strengthen-global-research-community/

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