European Open Digital Ecosystems

AFNIC, a non-profit organisation, is tasked with managing the domain name registry in France; and the French Network Information Centre. Our vision: because the.fr ccTLD is a public good, our role is considered one of general interest, consisting of contributing on a daily basis to a secure and stable internet; open to innovation; in which the French internet community plays a leading role.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

We are a mid-sized European Plone company with 19+ years of experience in the public sector solutions. We observe that the EU open-source ecosystem is technically and organizationally mature, but it continues to face significant structural barriers. A key strength is the proven maturity and long-term stability of open-source platforms used in European public administrations.

The Innovation Council public health e.V. (Innovationsverbund Öffentliche Gesundheit e.V. - InÖG) is an independent charitable German NGO, advocating for public digital infrastructures and gov-tech solutions that empower the communities they are built to serve. In the fall of 2020 the InÖG emerged out of several winning teams of the #wirvsvirus hackathon of the German government.

ESOP Associação de Empresas de Software Open Source Portuguesas (Business Open Source Portugal) is a non-profit trade association, established in 2007, in Portugal, of providers of products and services, and other organizations from the Portuguese Open Digital Ecosystem.

Question 1: The EU IT industry primarily consists of smaller players with SAP being the notable exception. This applies also to the OSS sector. The IT industry is full of network effects creating "winner-takes-it-all" markets where only one or a very small number of players can succeed. We see that situation with cloud infrastructure providers. Likewise, OSS players are relatively small in Europe.

Since 2025, reliance on American digital tools has become a geopolitical risk for French publichealth services. Administrative decisions abroad can suspend proprietary software, threatening care continuity. Opensource solutions now offer a strategic path to digital sovereignty, keeping data and services under national control and immune to external unplugging.

Proposals from the Association TOSIT https://tosit.fr TOSIT, “The Open Source I Trust”, is a not-for-profit, employee-free law 1901 association that brings together 25 major user organisations dopen Source in France.\ TOSIT aims to support the emergence of codes, software and IT solutions under an Open Source and/or open-source license, including cybersecurity through peer-to-peer sharing.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

The European parliament report on the 28th Regime rightfully addresses the broader ownership situation of European businesses today: - an unprecedented change of ownership putting the European economy up for sale, with a silver tsunami of European baby boomer business owners retiring in the coming decade.

The Interactions Research Group at the University of St. Gallen welcomes the Commissions initiative on Open-Source Digital Ecosystems and especially supports an open-source strategy that advances autonomy, strong privacy protection and open innovation without compromising global interoperability and connectivity.

Eurocities welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the European Commissions call for evidence on the development of the upcoming European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. Please find our input attached below, following the key questions of interest outlined in the consultation. Eurocities submits this response in its capacity as a city network.

In line with the EESCs report on services of general interest (TEN/851-EESC-2025), which calls for reforming governmental digital infrastructures to reduce dependence on non-EU providers and to strengthen European sovereignty and securityparticularly in connectivity and public service deliverywe affirm that Open Source-based Digital Commons are a strategic necessity for the European Union.

# Foreword: who are we? This reply to the call for evidence with reference Ares (2026) 69111 is supported by the main members contributing to the YunoHost open source software, gathered within the association Support Self-Hosting (association under French law, Law 1901).

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

The Open Source is characterised by the absence of monopolistic positions, favouring a plurality of small economic actors (SMEs and micro-enterprises) which together strengthen the strategic autonomy of end users.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

We, the Interest Group Digital Tools and their Development, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning within the Alliance Focus Digitality in Science, encourage the EU commission to foster the attractivity of the open source market for providers in the EU with this envisioned initiative.

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is a US based charitable nonprofit. For nearly 20 years, we have supported Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, enforced the license agreements underpinning FOSS, and educated the public and industry about the benefits of FOSS, among other things. Our mission mandates that we pursue the public good for the entire public of the world.

As a leading global community for Free and Open Source Geospatial Software, OSGeo.org welcomes the European Commissions Communication "Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems" (Ares(2026)69111). For over two decades, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) has served as an umbrella foundation for global open source geospatial software like QGIS, gvSIG, GeoServer, MapServer, GDAL, PostGIS, GeoTools…

As a senior IT Architect and IT Manager at a large German university and IT representative of a European University Alliance, I can report that open-source software is an essential component of modern IT service provision and the foundation of a sustainable and resilient IT portfolio. European open-source communities are strong and high-quality, particularly in academia, the public sector, and SMEs.

EU institutions, including the EC, are currently spending significant amount of money to pay for American corporations, namely Amazon with AWS, Microsoft with Azure but also the Office Suite, SharePoint, Windows, and a lot more, for the last few years OpenAI, Oracle, etc. This is money that is then not available for supporting existing EU corporations and startups.

The GÉANT Association welcomes the European Commission initiative to set out a strategic approach to the open-source sector. A strengthened EU open-source sector can contribute significantly to Europes technological sovereignty and the cybersecurity agenda, and we call for the support of the European Union to create the framework conditions for this.

In line with the EESCs report on services of general interest (TEN/851-EESC-2025), which calls for reforming governmental digital infrastructures to reduce dependence on non-EU providers and to strengthen European sovereignty and securityparticularly in connectivity and public service deliverywe affirm that open source-based digital commons and distributed manufacturing (DC DM) are a strategic necessity for the…

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that hosts Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

Europe has an outstanding culture of transparency that aligns with EU digital rights and the clear support of end user and customer rights. It has also become clear, that the European IT infrastructure heavily depends on EU-external big tech companies with proprietary systems. That leaves the EU and its countries subject to political pressure and amplifies a brain-drain out of the EU.

Executive Summary This document presents the contribution of the openIMIS Initiative to the European Commissions Call for Evidence on European Open Digital Ecosystems. It draws on over ten years of experience developing and operating openIMIS, an open-source digital public good (DPG) for health financing and social protection, currently supporting more than 36 million beneficiaries across 14 countries.

The following feedback focuses on open-source silicon and its ecosystem. "Open silicon" denotes an integrated circuit whose complete design (from the abstract description to the layout) is publicly available and can be implemented using open-source EDA tools, enabling full auditability and technological sovereignty.

Universities can play a key role in promoting the adoption of F/OSS technologies at European level (and in particular in the public sector). By adopting F/OSS solutions in the course of study, they can help to generate ‘basic awareness’ on the part of students (long-term outcomes) and support the market by stimulating the development and support of such solutions (short-term outcomes).

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

The Rust programming language project (the language, compiler, standard library, etc.) is increasingly an incredibly important part of many modern open source technology. The Rust project has over a hundred active members (maintainers) and many more contributors. Many of the maintainers and contributors live in the European Union, and the Rust project couldn't exist in its current form without these people.

This contribution is submitted by RIOS, the Italian network of open source enterprises, which brings together companies actively developing, deploying, and maintaining open technologies, with the aim of strengthening high-quality, sustainable open source offerings within the European market.

I am a long-time open-source hacker and entrepreneur. I have been using, contributing to and doing business around open source since 1997. I have seen how open-source has evolved in some areas (licensing, business models, public appeal, contribution governance models, from volunteer work to paid jobs, etc) and has also remained static in others (mostly infrastructure software, sophisticated tooling, abuse by…

This position paper, submitted by Open Knowledge Sweden, Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Knowledge Finland, and Open Knowledge Estonia, responds to the European Commission's 2026 Call for Evidence on "The European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy." Drawing on two decades of experience in building and supporting open digital infrastructure, we provide observations and recommendations to advance the EU's strategic…

Nivenly Foundation is a US-based non-profit migrating to the European Union; however, no established migration pathway exists for smaller foundations. Legal structures vary by country, guidance is fragmented, and qualified expertise is difficult to access. We are grateful for this opportunity to share our expertise and experiences on this matter.

From the perspective of an agency managing director who has been developing community-oriented open-source software for 30 years and offering services with it, I very much welcome the move toward digital sovereignty. For far too long we have talked about it and often met with deaf ears.

Please find attached our feedback as the Matrix.org Foundation. To summarise, whilst the EU open source sector is very dynamic and, in aggregate across all countries, is at level with the US, it suffers from a different set of weaknesses. In particular the lack of recurring funding and revenue limits its evolution and scalability.

Europe’s superpower is its ability to regulate. We cannot create cloud realities like AWS, Azure, Oracle and friends from scratch, but we can regulate a system of harmonisation of cloud services, allowing customers to use cloud services from different European providers as if they were one cloud; this would increase competition and transparency in usage, effectively obliging different service providers to…

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the European Open Digital Ecosystems Strategy. Open digital ecosystems are a prerequisite for scalable compliance, supply-chain security, and long-term competitiveness.

In my opinion, free software plays a crucial role in the digital sovereignty and innovativeness of the European Union. It promotes them by offering open standards and freedom of choice. This is particularly important as dependencies on proprietary solutions limit the self-determination and innovative power of European companies.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

First and foremost, we applaud the initiative by the union to take an active role in open-source maintenance and development. We share the view that adoption and usage of open-source technologies is vital to securing digital sovereignty within the EU and its member states. As to the questions posed in the consultation strategy, our stance is as follows. 1.

Symfony welcomes the opportunity to provide evidence for the European Commissions Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. As a European-born open source PHP framework that now powers over 20% of the professional web and supports a global community of 600,000 developers, our contribution is attached and focuses on five key areas: 1) we advocate for open source as a foundational infrastructure for European digital autonomy.

We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the European Open Digital Ecosystems Strategy. Free and open source software is a key enabler of Europes technological sovereignty, competitiveness and digital resilience.

Platformable welcomes the opportunity to respond to the call for evidence on Towards open digital ecosystems. We work with enterprises, SMEs, startups, industry associations, standards bodies, and non-profit organisations on open digital ecosystems in which everyone can participate and co-create their own value.

Proxmox VE: European Excellence in Virtualization When discussing technological sovereignty and open-source innovation in Europe, Proxmox Virtual Environment deserves special recognition. This Austrian-developed virtualization platform perfectly embodies what the EU's digital strategy aims to achieve: independent, transparent, and high-quality technological solutions.

The EU is a major player in the global open-source sector, hosting many open-source software projects and contributors. The R project is one example of this: a third of the core development team are in the EU, the non-profit R Foundation that supports the project is seated in Austria, and R is one of the few OSS projects with a package repository hosted in the EU.

Ecma Internationals perspective: For reference, ECMA-341 (Environmental Design Considerations for ICT & CE Products) and ECMA-370 (TED - The ECO declaration) reflects the holistic thinking required to establish standards relevant to not just individual product attributes, but holistic product design in the technology sector.

Verda's response addresses Europe's open source software strategy through three interconnected pillars. The first, "Public-Sector Stewardship" advocate for "open by default" policies where government systematically publish code, contribute upstream, and establish OSPO capacity to professionalize engagement with open digital commons.

Open source is a key in EUs tech sovereignty, as the code is public and not controlled by any state. It drives competitiveness, as collaboration allow to grow really fast comparing to closed source projects. Open source is also the only way to provide transparency for citizens privacy, who will know where their data go and where they are hosted.

AI Chamber CEE provides comments on the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy, with particular attention to the implications for innovation and the competitiveness of SMEs. An open digital ecosystem (open source) should be treated as an instrument of the EUs strategic digital autonomy rather than merely a technical choice.

Many business endeavours in the EU and the world are only possibly because they build upon OSS. The EU has an inherent advantage here, since many of these OSS projects are developed by EU citizens and thus often already tailor made for European needs.

Open source is more than a form of licence: it is necessary infrastructure. Waag FutureLab (like Open Nederland, whose response we support) advocates a strategy that guarantees transparency, innovation and democratic values according to the principle: public money = public code. The situation in the Netherlands: since 2020, policy and implementation in the Netherlands has been based on the ‘Open, unless’ policy.

Filed in Dutch · English published by the European Commission

Digital resilience, technological sovereignty, and competitiveness associated with Open Source critically depend on the availability of professionals capable of operating, deploying, and maintaining open technologies in real environments. Regulatory frameworks, R&D funding, and infrastructure investment are necessary but insufficient if not accompanied by a deliberate policy for skills training and certification.

Linux Foundation Europe welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the public consultation on the European Open Digital Ecosystems Strategy. More detailed feedback is provided in the accompanying document, while the key points are summarised as follows: 1.

Centre for Net Zero welcomes the European Commissions initiative to develop a strategy for European Open Digital Ecosystems. We strongly support the Commissions ambition to strengthen Europes competitiveness, resilience and technological sovereignty through open, interoperable and trustworthy digital infrastructure.

Full feedback attached. Most importantly, we discuss issues and possible solutions: - Supply chain blindness: disregarding software packages (as opposed to models, applications) and distribution pathways (e.g., python package index). - Governance blindness: disregarding who controls a package, community, or its assets - a truly open community or a US foundation under tight but covert control?

1. Nextcloud is an example of a promising alternative to MS 365 suite, but it could benefit from more resources to make it a better drop-in replacement for an expensive MS subscription for the organization both with regard to functionality, stability, scaling and end-user experience.

Please find attached our detailed answers to the specific questions of the call for evidence. For convenience, here is the introductory page, including our most important findings for European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy: As an SME that has published open source software since its founding over ten years ago, we, Cloudogu GmbH, are particularly pleased to contribute to this Call for Evidence regarding the…

The Apache Software Foundation welcomes the opportunity to present evidence to the strategic approach to open-source that the European Commission is developing. Our contribution is attached and focuses on four areas: 1) A global communiy matters more than code, 2) open source is sensitive to hurdles - let the community scratch our own itches, 3) the importance of Friction Free Participation/open access (also to ESO…

Relying on free software and open source enables digital sovereignty, technological independence, adaptation to regional needs and the promotion of the local economy. LliureX is more than an operating system or its applications, it is a digital transformation initiative of educational institutions in the Valencian community based on free and open source software.

Filed in Spanish · English published by the European Commission

Red Hat*, the worlds leading provider of open source solutions, uses a community-driven model to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, automation, container, and Kubernetes technologies, as well as open source AI frameworks that power the full machine learning lifecycle.

Submitted on behalf of Social Web Foundation (https://socialwebfoundation.org/), Newsmast Foundation (https://newsmastfoundation.org/), Stichting Advies Bureau Ongevraagd Advies (SABOA) (https://www.saboa.eu/), Fedivariety (https://FediVariety.org/) and Save Social (https://savesocial.eu/) We are a coalition of civil society organisations operating in Europe and globally.

QGIS.org submits this contribution as the steward of QGIS, a widely deployed Digital Public Good forming a core component of public and private-sector geospatial infrastructure. Drawing on more than two decades of real-world use across administrations, SMEs, and critical sectors, we highlight that Europes digital sovereignty depends not only on adopting open source, but on sustainably maintaining and governing it.

Today, most source lopen business models are based on lopen core: a proprietary share (often a corporate version) is needed to access the full potential of the technology. This approach may hold back collective dynamics, as incentives to contribute focus on the lactor that controls the differentiating part. This is reflected in a lot of open source software, but too few digital commons and a fragmented landscape.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

** Q1 Strengths / barriers We are a small Plone company with 6 years of publicsector experience; we observe that EU opensource platforms are mature but face structural barriers. Main barrier: procurement rules that favor market share and large references. ** Q2 Added value and examples Open source enables legal and technical reuse and reduces vendor lockin; it supports data sovereignty and long lifecycles.

Dear Commissioner, Do you remember Directive (EU) 2022/2380, which sets the USB-C universal charging standard? Since 2024, everyone has to use the same USB-C connector: this prevented each brand from producing different cables, improving convenience for citizens and reducing waste electronic waste (WEEE), leading to concrete and verifiable savings.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

The following feedback is provided by Herrmann Ultraschall, a global leading manufacturer of ultrasonic welding equipment for industrial manufacturing processes. 1. Q: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the EU open-source sector? 1. A: Strength: Software quality and interoperability.

Feedback attached PagoPA S.p.A., created as a result of the Italian Simplifications Law Decree no.135 of 14 December 2018, is the company wholly owned by the State through the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and subject to the supervision of the Prime Minister.

The Wiener Stadtwerke strongly support the planned EU strategy and stress the need for a coherent EU-wide approach to ensure its effective implementation. A single framework with clearly defined roles, responsibilities and cooperation mechanisms is essential to avoid fragmentation and enable scalable cross-border deployment.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

The Deutsche Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverband e.V. (DBSV), as the umbrella organisation, represents the interests of 1.2 million blind and visually impaired people in Germany. In our view, a European open source strategy must explicitly address how accessibility and usability of open source software can be ensured in the long term.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Open source software is the way for Europe to provide competitive digital services to US-based big tech in the short and medium term. Aligned with OFE's initiative for a European Digital Sovereign Fund, provisions should be made so that open sources projects with active communities can have access to public grands.

See attached file. About the Internet Foundation: The Internet Foundation is an independent, public benefit organisation whose mission is to promote an Internet that makes a positive contribution to both people and society. Our vision is that everyone in Sweden should be willing, confident and able to use the internet.

Filed in Swedish · English published by the European Commission

Our foundation organizes cultural events for ~10 years at this point, primarily with volunteers. We have used Open Source solutions for years, allowing us to both lower costs and achieve things we could not otherwise afford (fully digitalized and centralized inventory, online invoicing and document signing), and customize those solutions to match what we do and make our events better than we otherwise could do with…

European open digital industry development requires enabling businesses and open digital ecosystems to interface effectively with procurement and funding mechanisms. This response proposes custodian organisations managing dual-fund mechanisms, four-way value chain separation in procurement, and immediate policy declarations making open source the default.

European DIGITAL SME Alliance supports the Commissions initiative to create a cohesive strategy for European Open Digital Ecosystems, at the condition that this does not become exclusive of portions of the existing market.

Associazione Italiana Internet Provider (AIIP) is the oldest and largest association of ICT operators in Italy and has been representing for 30 years more than 60 Italian SME operators, who have been and still are committed to create an open, distributed, and independent telecom network, including by setting up colocation data centres and offering and/or using them to provide housing, hosting, and cloud and edge…

To truly strengthen the European open source ecosystem, it is not enough to invest only in major industrial projects or research programmes. it is crucial to support communities, associations and social infrastructure that make source lopen live, accessible and adoptable every day.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

I am an open source survivor. I have attached a copy of the claim and evidence bundle filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Federal court case no. 1:25-CV-03883-UA, FSFE & Debian group behaviour, harassment, abuse problems, including the death of another Debian Developer on our wedding day.

About eco: With approximately 1,000 member companies, eco (international.eco.de) is the leading Association of the Internet Industry in Europe. Since 1995, eco has been highly instrumental in shaping the Internet, fostering new technologies, forming framework conditions, and representing the interests of its members in politics and international forums. eco has offices based in Cologne, Berlin and Brussels.

As the IT interest group of the GPA trade union, we welcome the EU initiative on European open digital ecosystems. The Federal GPA Forum (Nov. 2025) decided by a large majority on the request tabled by IG IT on digital sovereignty.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Fairphone welcomes the European Commissions initiative to develop a European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. We believe technological sovereignty and the circular economy are interconnected: truly sustainable hardware requires an open and long lasting software. Our vision about the key pillars for an Open Digital Ecosystem: 1.

The Sovereign Tech Agency welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the European Commissions Call for Evidence informing the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. Open-source software underpins nearly all modern digital technologies.

The European Union faces a strategic crossroads regarding the adoption and development of open-source technologies for cloud services. While open source has become a global driver of innovation, competition, and technological independence, Europe currently plays a limited role in leading major open source projects.

BOSSTEK (Business for Open Source Software) has been an ESN in open source software since 2004 which provides services for the development and integration of open source software in the field of infrastructure and networks. The aim of allowing businesses and administrations to have full control and ownership of their information systems is Bosstek’s DNA. 1.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

OVHcloud, the leading European cloud provider, welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the European Commissions initiative Towards European open digital ecosystems, in response to the questions suggested in the Call for Evidence. Together with the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act, these initiatives can provide a coherent framework to strengthen Europes digital sovereignty and competitiveness.

[Answer 5] In what sectors could an increased use of open source lead to increased competitiveness and cyber resilience? Targeted use of open source can measurably boost both cyberresilience and competitiveness lowering TCO, accelerating innovation cycles and giving European suppliers a credible path to win on trust and sovereignty.

We support the Commissions initiative on European open digital ecosystems and the objective of reducing structural dependencies in the digital stack. Open source can be a decisive lever for technological sovereignty because it increases user agency, auditability and control of critical infrastructure, while enabling interoperability and reuse.

[Answer 4] What technology areas should be prioritised and why? Priority technology areas should create a secure, scalable, and sovereign foundationthen enable higherlevel capabilities like AI and domain services. Cloudnative platform core (onprem + sovereign service model): Build a modular, standardsbased cloud stack that runs both onprem and via trusted European operators. A single, convergent approach (e.g.

Decathlon welcomes the European Commissions endeavor to establish a roadmap to support Digital Sovereignty in the Union and appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback on the state of the European Open Source ecosystem.

We have tried to unpublish this feedback, as we have updated the attached document, but this has not been possible because of a repeated technical error. We have then replaced the attachment with the new document, which is also attached to the new feedback published on February 3. Both feedback are from The Document Foundation.

[Answer 3] What concrete measures and actions may be taken at EU level to support the development and growth of the EU open-source sector...? Europe can convert open source from a promise into a strategic pillar but it needs concrete, implementable EUlevel actions.

[Answer 2] What is the added value of open source for the public and private sectors? Open source is not just a licensing model it is a strategic enabler for both public administrations and private organisations. When assessed against cost, risk, lockin, security and innovation, OSS delivers concrete, measurable advantages but only if policy and practice enable reuse, maintenance and trustworthy deployment.

The European Open Source Academy (EOSA) welcomes the European Commission's initiative to develop a strategic approach towards open digital ecosystems, particularly as it relates to recognition of and support for open source software (OSS) and open source hardware (OSH).

[Answer 1] What are the strengths and weaknesses of the EU open-source sector? Open source is a strategic instrument for Europe it delivers transparency, reuse and communitydriven innovation while reducing vendor lockin.

Open source is a key enabler for Europes digital sovereignty, competitiveness, and cybersecurity. To be effective, EU policy must strengthen Europes capacity to sustain, govern, and adopt open technologies as part of a global ecosystem, addressing existing barriers in funding, procurement, maintenance, and market integration. Please see the attached document for the complete statement.

ING welcomes the opportunity to provide input on how to foster open digital ecosystems in Europe, given the importance and widespread use of open-source software, also in the banking community. ING considers that open source delivers the most value when three parts work together: i. Open code keeps the source available so it can be reviewed, fixed, and maintained over time, ii.

Open Future welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, and welcomes the focus of the proposed strategy on open source software and technologies as a way to bolster digital sovereignty. A thriving open source ecosystem is the best path towards building not (just) European alternatives, but an ecosystem that supports alternative ways of developing technology that serves the needs of society.

The CEA fully supports the European Commission’s initiative to develop a European strategy for open digital ecosystems and open source solutions. As a research and technology organisation, CEA develops, uses and valorises many software products, an increasing share of which is distributed under open source licences, and relies heavily on these solutions in its research, technological development and innovation…

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

Open-Xchange would like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to participate in its call for evidence on open digital ecosystems in Europe. We think the open-source paradigm naturally aligns with Europe's objectives of digital autonomy. As a European open SME, we face problems such as market entrenchment by global proprietary vendors and a lack of venture capital.

LHC welcomes the opportunity to participate and provide feedback to this call for evidence. LHC appreciates the European Commission's efforts to address the critical need for a better understanding of Open Source and its impact on both European public and private sectors in order to make critical decisions regarding the challenges, solutions and opportunities in this area.

Open Source contributes uniquely to the broader policy objectives of the European Union across sectors, by increasing control, reducing dependencies, and providing long-term sustainability of public and private investment.

Sovereignty is about self determination and control. Currently, the EU is highly dependent on US-based mega-corporations like Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon. Software written by these companies is used not only privately by EU citizens, but also by governments in all facets of their work. Unfortunately, these corporations only respect EU sovereignty when it is compatible with US interests.

Im responding as a European agency owner and active open-source contributor. For me, the core point is simple: data sovereignty and security are impossible without strong open-source foundations. Open source isnt just a nice-to-have, its critical infrastructure for EU technological sovereignty, competitiveness, and resilience. But adoption alone wont fix things.

Interaktiv GmbH, an SME with 25 employees based in Germany submits this evidence based on 25 years of Plone CMS integration for educational institutions and public administration in the DACH region. We operate platforms serving 1.5+ million users in critical public sector contexts, providing concrete evidence of European open source delivering at scale with complete data sovereignty.

By reducing spending on proprietary software licenses, open source allows organizations to allocate more resources to consulting services and specialized expertise, thereby creating high-quality jobs and supporting local technology sectors. However, inconsistent funding, fragmented support, and procurement biases towards proprietary software still limit wider adoption and sustainable contributions.

This contribution is based on a practice of more than 15 years within innovation3, where each advisory mission feeds into a reflection on the sustainability of communities (and associated projects) through a structured research and action approach. It complements the replies drawn up with the Coop des Communs, Numeum, Open Source Experts and the CNLL.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

IBM thanks the European Commission for the opportunity to provide input to the Call for Evidence on an initiative Towards European open digital ecosystems. IBM has been a strong supporter of the European Commissions Open Source strategy 2020-2023 and we welcome the initiative to build on this and expand the focus towards an open digital ecosystem.

=> First thing to clarify is that we should not consider open-source, but free software. # What are the main barriers that hamper adoption and maintenance of high-quality and secure open source; The power of the habits with using proprietary SW Global contract from the state signed with unfaire clause (compliance with proprietary formats or so) with private proprietary SW Regulation to enforce use of open standard…

OpenForum Europe welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the European Commissions Call for Evidence on the forthcoming Communication Towards European open digital ecosystems. We welcome the growing recognition across EU institutions of the strategic importance of open source as a foundational component of Europes digital infrastructure, as well as the emerging convergence of policy initiatives that place software…

The city and Eurometropolis of Strasbourg are pursuing a proactive policy of replacing non-sovereign software with free and open-source alternatives. We are currently preparing to replace Microsoft office tools with free and sovereign alternatives: NextCloud, LibreOffice, Collabora Online, Element/Matrix, etc.

1/La the main weakness of the open source solutions sector in the EU is its dependence on open source projects, mainly US. Even the open source ecosystem is not immune to this dependency: in 2024, the Linux community had to comply with US sanctions by excluding all developers whose employer was on the U.S. OFAC SDN list.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

As Head of Research at LINAGORA, I am honored to submit our formal response to the "Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems" call for evidence. For over 25 years, LINAGORA has championed a "3rd Digital Way"; an ethical, sovereign alternative to the dominance of American and Chinese oligopolies.

We are currently supporting, selling and distributing solutions made by Nethesis SRL in Pesaro (PU) – Italy. www.nethserver.org It’s a great all in one software for, Collaboration, Unified Communications, Email, Documents, and everything you need in your office! They are also creators of NethSecurity...

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

Numeum welcomes the European Commissions Call for Evidence on Open Digital Ecosystems and supports the development of a renewed EU open-source strategy. Open-source technologies play a central role in strengthening Europes competitiveness, innovation capacity and technological sovereignty.

BSA supports the EUs ambition to review its approach to open source by releasing a new Strategy, updating the framework introduced by the EU Open Source Strategy 20202023. We strongly believe in the importance of boosting the development and competitiveness of the EU open source sector, as well as in encouraging open-source uptake by private and public users.

The geospatial sector within the European Union is largely shaped by open source software. This includes factors such as open standards, interoperability, and reuse. Public institutions and geodata-holding bodies of various administrative levels benefit from open source software and consider it indispensable for their daily work.

Dear European Commission, Europes ability to safeguard its digital freedom, security, and innovation hinges on regaining control over its software supply chain. To achieve true technological sovereignty, the EU must actively support a robust, resilient open-source ecosystem.

a. Using public procurement as a lever to promote the adoption of European open-source solutions - According to the European Commission, 70% to 90% of the code used in the digital economy relies on open-source components, but the economic value generated by these developments largely benefits non European players (European Commission, 12/01/26).

CZ.NIC, Internet Systems Consortium, NLnet Labs and NetDEF --four non-profit organizations employing maintainers for long-lived open source projects in the public interest-- welcome this opportunity to contribute to the European Open Digitale Ecosystem strategy. The attached document contains our joint response.

Towards European open digital Ecosystems: (Feedback by 1io Brandguardian GmbH) Please find the full feedback pdf attached. 1) While the EU open-source sector thrives on high-quality developer talent and ethical innovation, its full potential is stifled by a lack of cohesive organizational strategy, economic value leakage to non-EU entities, and a complex regulatory landscape thatdespite aiming for digital…

I've been running a small (< 10 employees) company that exclusively produces public domain (Unlicense) software for the last ~16 years or so. It's extremely hard as an open source company to find reliable sources of income as the main things you can ask from customers is money for support and feature development - but both of those are "temporary" in the sense that if you do things right, neither is needed…

As a European technology leader headquartered in Sweden, Axis has long built its products on open source software, combining openness with strong governance, security by design, and sustained investment in research and development. As early as 1999, Axis launched one of the first commercial embedded Linux products, helping to validate open source as a viable foundation for specialized hardware.

POSITION PAPER In response to the Call for Evidence: "Towards European open digital ecosystems" Reference: Ares (2026) 69111 Date: February 3, 2026 STAKEHOLDER INFORMATION Your Data Company BV [name removed] Private Sector / Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Location Netherlands [phone removed] [email removed]

PMB Services is an SSLL (Société de Services en Logiciel Libre) of 42 employees established in France. We produce the free PMB library management software. We have a B2B model of services around the PMB software, which encourages investment in the development of the software. We sell only service, so the software must be reliable and scalable: the update does not add anything.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

The European open source sector is incredibly diverse, and although it is dominated by small companies and just a handful of mid-caps, they have been able to create very competitive products with a global reach. What is clearly missing at the moment is a coordination mechanism for European open source vendors to increase their commercial collaboration and the mutual integration of their technologies.

We are a company that, among other things, provides virtual infrastructure to customers in all sectors. In the past, we used the same proprietary software from the US as most other companies in the world. After the manufacturer was taken over at the end of 2023 and the new owners drastically changed the terms of use and prices as of 2024, we have clearly felt what lack of sovereignty means: without a bold change in…

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Schwarz Group supports the objectives of the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. The AI breakthrough and the shift to cloud-native architectures represent a paradigm change. To ensure competitiveness and digital sovereignty, Europe must reduce dependencies by scaling three key levels: Applications: Boosting European CSPs which act as long-term maintainers and industrial integrators of critical components.

The European Council of Engineers Chambers (ECEC) sees the initiative on European open digital ecosystems as a key lever for securing Europe's economic, legal, and technological capacity to act. Digital infrastructures have long been critical foundations for professional, economic, and public activity and must not be shaped exclusively by the short-term business interests of individual global providers.

Please find enclosed the feedback submitted jointly by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) and Global Media Registry (GMR), highlighting the value of unique identification mechanisms, grounded in existing international standards, as a core building block for robust, scalable, and interoperable digital ecosystems.

Mobivia (Norauto, Midas, ATU) strongly supports the European Commissions initiative for an Open Source Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) core stack. This is viewed as a vital move for EU technological sovereignty, ensuring that the automotive transition remains competitive, secure, and open, rather than restricted to closed proprietary ecosystems.

Feedback Response to Ares(2026)69111 from ElaadNL Strengths and weaknesses of the EU open-source sector The EU opensource sector benefits from strong collaboration, alignment with EU values, and a need for digital sovereignty.

Please find attached ITI's contribution to the call for evidence on European Open Digital Ecosystems. ITI - the Information Technology Industry Council - is the global trade association of the technology industry, representing 80 of the worlds most innovative tech companies.

I am writing as a representative of an EU-based service company and a partner of the Proxmox ecosystem. Our business model involves developing strategic solutions for our clients, where our entire cloud infrastructure and value-added services are built upon Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE). We strongly support the "European Open Digital Ecosystems" initiative.

The EU open-source sector benefits from growing developer community, strong public/academic/industrial foundations, and close alignment with EU values. Open-source is a key lever for digital sovereignty. Open-source delivers strategic independence, security, efficiency and innovation for public/private sectors.

We are a Plone company with 27 years of publicsector experience; we observe that EU opensource platforms are mature but face structural barriers. Q1 Strengths, weaknesses and barriers - The EU open source ecosystem already includes mature and reliable platforms used in critical public sector contexts.

As a Proxmox partner, we work with many customers in sensitive environments such as critical infrastructure, public sector organizations, and industrial companies that require air-gapped systems with no permanent internet connectivity. In these scenarios, open source virtualization platforms like Proxmox VE provide clear advantages over many proprietary or hyperscaler-based solutions.

Thank you for this initiative! Open source is key to digitising Europe. One sector that is not yet open source is C-ITS: Cooperative intelligent transport systems, i.e. the digitalisation of our mobility and related transport systems (traffic lights, connected driving, public transport acceleration, etc.). Open source would bring many benefits to speed up this topic in the future.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

This feedback is to express support for the creation of an EU level Sovereign Tech Fund, roughly modeled on its German namesake, and/or the current Next Generation Internet. Previous EU initiatives like the Next Generation Internet (of which we have been and still are recipients of funding) have made it possible for independent contributors of FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) to conduct their work on…

Please find below a summary of the contribution from the Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière (IGN France), as well as the full contribution attached. The need for digital commons at source will not be enough to create a sovereign technological capacity; there is a need to achieve digital commons.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

I believe that lopen source is a strategic pillar for the future of the European digital ecosystem and that its role should be further strengthened in the policies, funding and implementations promoted by the European Union. The deployment of open source solutions fosters transparency, interoperability and technological sovereignty, reducing dependence on non-EU suppliers and closed proprietary models.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

The Internet Archive Europe is part of a network of non-profit digital libraries spanning the US, Europe, and Canada, all dedicated to providing universal access to knowledge. Our work embodies both open source and open access principles: we rely on open source software to build and maintain our infrastructure, and we provide open access to the digital materials we preserveincluding websites, books, audio, video…

EU Open-Source Digital Ecosystems Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) Submitted by: Bojana Kostić, Senior Digital Policy Advisor 1. Strengths, weaknesses, and barriers The EU open-source ecosystem benefits from strong, values-driven communities, mature technical expertise, and a growing political recognition of the risks associated with dependency on non-EU proprietary technologies.

Nokia is a global leader in connectivity for the AI era. With expertise across fixed, mobile, and transport networks, were advancing connectivity to secure a brighter world. Nokia recognizes the strength the European technical community has in driving collaboration and cooperation, which is the foundation on which the open source movement is build. Modern telecommunications rely heavily on open source.

# Answer on behalf of the Plone Foundation ## Q1 Strengths/weaknesses and barriers The EU opensource ecosystem includes mature platforms used in critical public services. A core weakness is that longterm maintenance is undervalued versus new development (e.g., NGI programs fund innovation, not operational maintenance). Procurement often favors incumbents or marketshare thresholds rather than long lifecycles.

For the European Union's effort to build a sovereign digital ecosystem to succeed, the EU's digital strategy has to be based on the principles of open source. Thus, both Instrat and Centrum Cyfrowe share the view that expanding the current Open Source Software Strategy (2020-2023) to cover more areas of the Commission's activities (including those aimed at impacting the whole European economy, not just the…

This is the submission for Open Source Sweden. We are an association for suppliers of Open Software in Sweden. Our organization was formed to protect the interests of Swedish suppliers. Our purpose is to promote a well-functioning national and international market for the development, sale, delivery and support of open software and services. A market comprising both private and public organisations.

COSS The Finnish Centre for Open Systems and Solutions (Open Source Finland) welcomes the chance to contribute evidence for the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. COSS is a Finnish non-profit association representing around 50 companies and organisations that rely heavily on open source software, and it works to advance open source adoption and digital sovereignty in Finland and Europe.

En tant quintégrateur Proxmox et BlueMind, et éditeur de la solution libre dasset management OCS Inventory, FactorFX intervient à la fois au cœur des infrastructures (virtualisation, stockage, messagerie) et au niveau de la gestion de parc et de la sécurité des postes, ce qui lui donne un recul concret sur les conditions de succès des écosystèmes open source européens. Notre contribution est en attachement.

Nethesis Feedback Towards European open digital ecosystems If the EU truly wants to reduce digital dependence, it must stop treating open source as research and start treating it as critical infrastructure and an adoptable, market-ready product.

E-Mobility Europe welcomes the European Commissions initiative Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems and supports the development of a coherent EU strategy to strengthen the open-source sector as a key pillar of Europes technological sovereignty, cybersecurity, competitiveness and green transition.

Le Comité Stratégique de Filière « Solutions Numériques de Confiance » salue l'initiative de la Commission européenne, qui acte une prise de conscience majeure : le logiciel libre n'est plus seulement un modèle de développement collaboratif, c'est désormais un pilier central de la souveraineté technologique et de la résilience géopolitique de l'Union.

VNG sees open-source software as a strategic enabler of digital autonomy, interoperability, and public values for local governments across Europe. Municipalities are committed to reducing vendor-lockins, enabling flexibility and reducing costs by facilitating re-use. This is in part organised via Common Ground.

Open source software is the basis of my career. As a Linux System Administrator I've seen the early days until now, where most servers in the world run Linux (also most cloud service providers). In the scientific computing world (EESSI) and HPC clusters and everythin gin between runs on Linux and is dependent on open source developments.

1. Living labs are already prototypes of open innovation ecosystems since 2006. Enoll has been the key actor in organizing and supporting this community. 2. Until now, living labs has been mainly focused on the "user of digital technologies" perspective more than in the generators of the digital technologies. 3. Now the times are changing.

ELIXIR coordinates sustainable, openly available and widely reused bioinformatics resources demonstrating that Europe can already scale trustworthy open digital technologies across borders. We connect developers and Open Source Software and Workflows (OSSWs) across our members (https://elixir-europe.org/platforms/tools) and coordinate EU-funded projects related to open software…

The Foundation for Public Code response focuses on a proven organizational modelthe Public Product Organization (PPO)that directly addresses many of the barriers identified by the Commission. PPOs provide a sustainable framework for public organizations and their vendors to collaboratively develop, maintain, and govern shared open-source solutions, transforming the economics of digital public infrastructure.

The Austrian Federal Chamber of Civil Technicians sees the initiative on European open digital ecosystems as a key lever for securing Europe’s economic, legal and technological capacity to act. Digital infrastructures have long been critical foundations of professional, economic and public activity and must not be shaped exclusively by short-term business interests of individual global providers.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Hallr supports SMEs and industrial organisations across Europe with IT and OT infrastructure. From our practical experience, open-source infrastructure plays a key role in building resilient, cost-effective and sovereign digital ecosystems.

To make an open-source strategy work in public administration, the focus should shift from principles to deployable, interoperable solutions and measurable outcomes. Early implementation should start with a joint assessment with public bodies to define expected benefits (e.g., efficiency, security, reduced lock-in) and track them with a small set of KPIs.

As IT operators and experts in implementing virtualisation solutions, based on our experience on the ground, we note the adoption of platforms such as Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE), which is a concrete and immediate response to the need for technological sovereignty and a reduction in dependence on dominant non-European suppliers. We suggest Proxmox VE in adoption strategies for the following key reasons: 1.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

The European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy aims to strengthen digital sovereignty, interoperability, security, and transparency across Europes digital landscape. Open standards, traceable data flows, and regulatory compliance are not contradictionsthey reinforce each other. This is precisely where DataGerry becomes a strong strategic fit when combined with ISMS and NIS2 requirements. ⸻ 1.

ACT | The App Association (hereafter ACT) welcomes the opportunity to submit comments to the European Commissions consultation on the European open digital ecosystems initiative. ACT is a policy trade association for the small business technology developer community. Our members are entrepreneurs, innovators, and independent developers within the global app ecosystem that engage with verticals across every industry.

# Answer on behalf of Syslab GmbH (syslab.com) SME Open Source Company ## Q1 Strengths / barriers - EU has many mature opensource platforms; main systemic barrier is procurement design that advantages large vendors and large references.

Europes digital sovereignty depends on reducing structural dependencies on a small number of non-European proprietary vendors that dominate key infrastructure layers such as virtualization and cloud platforms. Today, many European organizations rely on technologies controlled by large US corporations, where licensing terms, pricing models, product roadmaps, and even strategic direction are decided entirely outside…

Open source is not only a software development model, but a true vision: it puts freedom, sharing and collective responsibility at its core. It is a concrete demonstration that open collaboration generates quality, safety and lasting innovation. Choosing lopen means believing in a more transparent, sustainable and free ecosystem, where value grows when it is shared and not when it is closed.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

The EOS Consortiums contribution to the EU Call for Evidence Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems highlights the perspective of European open source companies that design, implement, operate, and maintain digital solutions at scale. The attached PDF contains our full statement, including practical recommendations to strengthen sustainable, sovereign, and interoperable open digital ecosystems in Europe.

As Sicuro Tech Lab, we very much welcome the Commission’s initiative. Our daily experience shows that the adoption of open source solutions is not only an ethical choice, but a strategic necessity to ensure the resilience and technological sovereignty of European companies. Based on our operational work, we would like to highlight the following key points: 1.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

GFOSS, a consortium of 37 Greek universities and research centres, welcomes this consultation as essential for European digital sovereignty. Our core argument is that technical capacity alone does not create sustainable open source ecosystems.

1 ️ General background Feedback from field experience As an RSSI in a critical health sector organisation (oncology and radiotherapy), jai made the deliberate choice to build a predominantly open-source digital ecosystem, operated in Europe, based on proven bricks such as Proxmox, Zabbix, OpenCTI, OpenCVE, Wazuh, Docker, Linux, etc.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

Would be good to secure entire supply chains, with openness and availability in Europe, including small fabrication nodes, e.g. 22 to 65 nm, with open PDK, including EDA tools, packaging, and formally proven components. The market would be critical infrastructures, armed forces, with dual use in manufacturing, to achieve economies of scale.

Open source is essential to the success of the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy because it strengthens the EUs technological sovereignty, security, and competitiveness. By enabling full transparency and control over digital tools, open source reduces Europes dependence on proprietary technologies and external providers, supporting a more autonomous and resilient digital infrastructure.

This contribution is submitted by a European open source e-learning and knowledge infrastructure provider with long-standing experience in the adoption, governance and sustainability of open source platforms across public administrations, universities, research organisations and defence-related contexts.

We are running Proxmox Virtual Environement software to manage our sovereign cloud infrastructure since 2010 (replacing vmware software for the vms && proprietary storage with opensource Ceph ). We also used Proxmox Backup Server to Manage our 1PB storage, replacing proprietary Veeam software.

As the Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL), representing over 300 French SMEs and mid-caps, we affirm that Open Source software is not just a technical choice but the foundation of Europes digital sovereignty and industrial competitiveness. For too long, Europe has allowed its digital infrastructure to be dominated by non-European tech giants, draining value, innovation, and autonomy from our economy.

Backed by decades of experience with open-source platforms like Proxmox VE, we are deeply committed to enabling freedom of choice and digital sovereignty for our customers. In an era of rapid geopolitical and economic change, European enterprises and public institutions must reduce critical dependencies on non-European political and economic agendas.

Baseline situation: Our company, civiservice.de GmbH, provides IT services around the open source software CiviCRM. However, we also use only open-source software for our own IT applications. Due to the very positive experience, we can only recommend this to all other organisations.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Dear Members of the European Commission, The Drupal Association welcomes the opportunity to respond to the call for evidence on the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. As stewards of Drupal, one of the world's largest open-source digital experience platforms powering hundreds of thousands of websites globally, we bring 25 years of experience building and sustaining a thriving open-source community.

Ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of open-source software, I support the arguments and positions of Proxmox GmbH, see attached file. With more than 30 years of experience in managing (complex) IT systems, I personally conclude: Transparency, sustainability, sovereignty and security can only be ensured with open source software systems.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

We are lichess.org, a free and open source chess server and non-profit organization under French law. We started in 2010 as a hobby project and have developed into a professional charity with 100+ active volunteers due to the support of the community, which has provided feedback and contributions since our very start.

Please find enclosed our contribution to the European Open Digital Ecosystems initiative. This position paper aims to present a comprehensive perspective: it examines the drivers behind the rise of American digital dominance, analyses why migration strategies often fall short, and puts forward a concrete proposal for the establishment of a European Digital Commons Foundation.

This document presents the contribution of the IoT & Embedded Systems Working Group of the Digital Transformation Commission of the Catalan Engineering Association to the European Commissions Call for Evidence on Open-Source Digital Ecosystems.

This document presents CERNs contribution to the EU consultation on European Open Digital Ecosystems, arguing that Europes competitiveness and digital autonomy are increasingly constrained by reliance on non-European digital infrastructures and by the lack of sustainable support for open technologies.

BOSSTEK (Business for Open Source Software and Technologies) has been an ESN in Open Source Software since 2004, providing services for the development and integration of Open Source Software in the field of infrastructure and networks. The aim of allowing businesses and administrations to have full control and ownership of their information systems is Bosstek’s DNA. 1.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

submitted by UwU-Space (uwu-space.ch) on behalf of 8 individuals As a group of individuals that are both privately and professionally involved in commercial and open source software projects in Europe, we are directly affected by EU activities and regulation around open source software.

FEEDBACK: European Open Digital Ecosystems Initiative From: RACKONE S.r.l. - Italy's Proxmox Gold Partner & Authorized Training Partner Q1. STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES OF EU OPEN-SOURCE SECTOR Strengths: European innovation: Proxmox (Vienna, Austria) proves world-class open-source infrastructure can be EU-developed, with 1.6M+ installations globally Data sovereignty by design: Developed under EU jurisdiction, no exposure…

We are a community of engineers, developers and technology enthusiasts. We want to provide a perspective on the meaning and approach to open source. # Why open source matters: 1. It makes it possible to avoid being dependent on the products of big tech companies. 2. It offers solutions that are transparent in operation. 3. It is safer because, thanks to transparency, errors are quickly detected and corrected. 4.

Filed in Polish · English published by the European Commission

Digital sovereignty is crucial for Europe to maintain control over its digital infrastructure, data, and decision-making tools. MovingLayers supports infrastructure and permitting workflows by building automated, transparent geospatial processes using tools such as QGIS, Apache Airflow, Jupyter Notebooks, Github and many more.

As the open-source committee chair of the Danish Data Science Community, I would like to make the following points: Trust and mutual contribution are the strengths of open source in the EU. We give back to each other across countries and public institutions. Not many private companies are able to contribute due to competition considerations and misunderstandings about what open source is and its quid pro quo nature.

Open Social is a European open-source software company operating large-scale community platforms for public institutions and international organisations, including at EU level. Our input is based on practical experience deploying and scaling open-source solutions in public-sector contexts, as well as contributing back to projects we rely on. 1.

Attached you will find the co-authored position of ASI - Austrian Standards International, DIN - the German Institute for Standardization, and DKE - German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies regarding the call for evidence on the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy.

1. Digital sovereignty through open standards, freedom of choice and innovation: Even after the European Commission’s Open Source Software Strategy 20202023, key challenges remain, in particular in binding the implementation of open standards, creating real choice and fostering European innovation. 2.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

This contribution presents the perspective of the EATRIS-CONNECT consortium on the European strategy for Open Digital Ecosystems, drawing on operational experience at the intersection of biomedical research, translational medicine, data, and AI.

Aluci welcomes the Commission's strategic push to reduce digital dependencies and bolster EU technological sovereignty. However, we contend that sovereignty cannot be achieved through the mere consumption of open source: it requires a fundamental mastery of the underlying engineering. Our contribution argues for a shift from "innovation-led" funding toward "maintenance-led" excellence.

Use of open source based products improves vendor diversity and can contribute to European digital sovereignty in multiple ways. For most public sector and sovereignty sensitive organisations this means commercially provided services based on open source. CIOs need a way to evaluate the sovereignty benefits of open source-based solutions.

European Pirate Party Submission- Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems Executive Summary: The European Pirate Party welcomes the Commissions Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems initiative as a timely opportunity to place open source at the core of Europes technological sovereignty.

We welcome the ambition to build European Open Digital Ecosystems and argue that Europe can advance digital sovereignty by making open-source adoption simpler, safer, and procurement-ready, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, universities, and public administrations.

This document provides Rabobanks perspective on Cloud Foundry in Europe, highlighting our largescale adoption, the strengths and weaknesses of the European opensource ecosystem, and recommendations for strengthening EU opensource sovereignty. It supports the case for increased European involvement in strategic opensource governance.

We use open-source solutions in many areas in our own internal systems, and we also extensively operate open-source software in our customers. Examples of technologies used include: Proxmox, Xen, PuTTY, Nextcloud, Roundcube, LibreOffice, Debian, Postfix, Apache, Ente Auth, Thunderbird, OpenMediaVault, WireGuard, WordPress, Rspamd, OpenStreetMap, Bitwarden/Vaultwarden.

Filed in Hungarian · English published by the European Commission

This submission focuses on open-weight AI, i.e. systems whose parameters are publicly available for download and adaptation, rather than open-source technologies broadly. We draw this distinction because open-weight AI presents governance challenges that traditional open-source software does not: once model weights are released, they cannot be recalled, safety guardrails can be removed with minimal effort, and…

Subject: Feedback on the EC Open Source Software Strategy: Scaling Proven Grassroots Solutions for European Digital Sovereignty As the lead developer of the AGHOS project (based at AGH University of Science and Technology, https://aghos.agh.edu.pl), I am writing to provide feedback on the European Commission's Open Source Software Strategy.

At XWiki and CryptPad, based on more than two decades of experience building and sustaining open-source software in Europe, we observe that open source can play a decisive role in rebuilding Europes competitiveness in software and in achieving European digital strategic autonomy.

This contribution is made in the name of Vates. We have already participated in the answers and documents as part of other established industry groups. However, we thought it necessary to highlight some specific aspects of business models found and operated in the Open Source ecosystem.

Proxmox, OpenProject, Nextcloud, SNIPE-IT, OPNSense... and so many others. Europe is already a world leader in open source, but we struggle. We need more grants, investment and support. A good model could be Fraunhofer-like system in each EU country.

Cigref, representing major French companies and public administrations, shares the Commission's findings on the crucial role of Open Source Software (OSS) in digital resilience. For our members, digital resilience is the ability to realistically control their future in order to secure their growth and create sustainable value.

Open Source as the necessary first step towards achieving European Digital Sovereignty. Submission by the RadicalxChange Foundation and its European Network. Below is an extract from the attachment "Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems" We welcome the Commission's initiative to develop a strategic approach to open source.

Successful enterprise migration in medium-sized businesses CIS GmbH Consulting & IT-Services, an experienced German IT system house focusing on high availability and virtualization, has successfully migrated a complex VMware environment to Proxmox VE in collaboration with a medium-sized customer.

CONTRIBUTION FROM OPEN FOOD FACTS: DO NOT FORGET DIGITAL COMMONS IN BUILDING OPEN DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS This is a contribution from Open Food Facts, a major digital common, born in Europe. Our 2 million+ active contributors and many more millions of users prove that citizens want to actively build European digital sovereignty, not just consume it.

Europe is at a crossroads. The new, painful geopolitical reality requires us to adapt quickly. The EU will not achieve digital self-determination and sovereignty by trying to replicate the predatory and harmful business models of Silicon Valley, which followed the move fast and break things mantra. We have broken enough things.

In Italy, the current legal framework mandates the adoption and reuse of OSS software, but it does not provide sufficient practical guidance to public administrations. As a result, we are exploring ways to offer more concrete support to help administrations implement these requirements effectively.

Martel is an SME that is involved in Open Source Software at multiple levels: we use it in everyday business operations; we develop, contribute to, and offer platforms and solutions based on Open Source; we engage and participate in several Open Source communities in the context of our European R&I activities and beyond.

The initiative represents an opportunity to advance the EUs technological sovereignty in a democratic and socially sustainable way. Fundación Cibervoluntarios contributes to this consultation from the framework of Citizen Digital Sovereignty, developed through the Declaration on Citizen Digital Sovereignty, the result of a collective and participatory process involving citizens, organised civil society, experts…

Our organization is a partner to federal states and municipalities. We develop and operate secure, reliable, and innovative IT solutions for public administration. All with a strong focus on digital sovereignty, data protection, and open standards. For better readability I upload our text file.

Coming back from FOSDEM 2026, where I met EU Policy Makers, heard the EU's ambitions around the European Open Digital Ecosystems initiative, I was compelled to submit this feedback. Open Source is the building block of more than 90% of the world's digital footprint and functionality and has already proven to be one of Europes greatest enablers of digital sovereignty, innovation, and resilience.

We are a group of software engineers and scientists working at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, UK. Many of us are EU citizens and we collaborate on open-source projects with many people across the world. We work particularly closely with the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble and the European Spallation Source in Lund and Copenhagen.

As an architect/systems and networks engineer in a local authority, we are in the process of migrating from our VMware virtual infrastructure to Proxmox VE 9.1. In all objectivity, Proxmox offers agility and leadership comparable to that of VMware, while offering almost unlimited compatibility with open standards.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

Generally, the open-source community is averse to online advertising. This is understandable, as the history of online advertising is closely associated with surveillance and related practices that are antithetical to core open-source values. However, online advertising does not have to be surveillance-based.

I am a European IT infrastructure consultant and Proxmox partner, working mainly with SMEs and organisations linked to the public sector. I support organisations in modernising on-premise and hybrid infrastructures, often as an alternative to highly concentrated proprietary vendors.

Submission by Cloudera (Open Source Program Office) Cloudera provides critical data infrastructure for several European financial institutions and major public sector bodies. We welcome this initiative, and additionally warn that a focus solely on Open Source Software (OSS) overlooks a more pressing threat to digital sovereignty: Data Format Lock-in.

As a strong advocate for EU-friendly and sovereign technology solutions, VMease is a private cloud management solution which is built on underlying open source technology from European companies such as Proxmox.

We are a small company that offers financial consulting and accounting services for businesses and private individuals. Personally, I have been using opensource software for more than 20years, deliberately purchasing hardware without a preinstalled operating system.

Igalia is an international open source consultancy with over 25 years of experience, based in Europe but with partners all over the world. We are significant contributors to key open source technologies like web engines, compilers, graphics drivers and multimedia systems, among others.

Hello, as a partner of the Proxmox ecosystem and supplier of IT solutions for organisations in the EU, we welcome the European Open Digital Ecosystems initiative. Open digital ecosystems are key for Europe’s technological sovereignty, the efficient use of public funds and the long-term sustainability of IT infrastructure.

Filed in Czech · English published by the European Commission

In order to be independent from US technologies, I use OpenSource solutions only. For server virtualisation, the Proxmox solution of the German company of the same name has been used for my needs and those of my clients for several years with great success. It is essential to focus on European sovereign solutions.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

LIncubateur des Territoires de l’ANCT has the task of supporting small authorities in their digital transition, in particular through the deployment of La Suite territoriale (base of services – professional digital identity, domain name, messaging, storage space – and an open source ecosystem of applications deployed on a decentralised basis).

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

Open source and open development software and solutions are key to avoid limited number of company sovereignty, and to enforce global contribution to innovation. EU should promote this, should better support EU based company that take open approach in any government tender. The biggest mistake here is to not support such kind of company growth against big multinational company.

* De open source strategie van onze organisaties staat beschreven in het rapport 'Opensourcewerken, de vrijblijvendheid voorbij' (2022). Dit rapport benoemt ook welke acties er nodig zijn om de eigen organisatie om te vormen.

5. Use of Open Source Within EU Institutions and Crisis Scenarios Beyond setting a strategic framework for the European digital ecosystem, the consultation should explicitly address how EU institutions themselves can and should adopt open-source solutions in their daily operations and crisis preparedness.

1. Position of the Heinlein Group Heinlein Group, based in Berlin, has been a pioneer in digital sovereignty, data protection, and open source in Europe for over 30 years. Through its brandsHeinlein Support, mailbox, OpenTalk, and OpenCloudthe company provides GDPR-compliant solutions for secure communication, hosting, and IT infrastructure.

Feedback as one of 5 directors of a SME with focus on building semantic data processing applications. 1/ What hampers adoption? We believe that it is in the first place a matter of perception at the side of IT decision makers. Local IT-administrators believe they are more sure and unburdened by the choice for an American platform with a name and larger customer base.

The importance of Open Source working and thinking is far greater than many realize. It touches the very foundations of our culture and our ability to determine our own future. Western society and present-day Europe are built upon the intellectual heritage of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.

A European open source strategy should place a strong focus on procurement guidelines. Until now, proprietary providers have been favoured. Procurement guidelines should be adapted or revised accordingly and revised to include new criteria so that open source manufacturers are favoured.

Open source is more than one form of licence; it is necessary infrastructure. Open Netherlands calls for a strategy that guarantees transparency, innovation and democratic values according to the principle: public money = public code. # # # the Dutch situation: since 2020, policy and implementation in the Netherlands has been based on the ‘Open, unless’ policy. We warn the EC of a step back.

Filed in Dutch · English published by the European Commission

The diagnosed problem of the EU’s technological dependence is relevant, but the proposed measures (soft strategy, lack of impact assessment) are disproportionately weak in relation to security and competitiveness risks. “Encouragement” is not enough to break the network effect of US giants. It might be preferable to introduce a hard ‘Public Money?’ principle instead of voluntary recommendations.

Filed in Polish · English published by the European Commission

Contribution proposal dAtol CD and Arawa. All the elements mentioned here are detailed in the attached document. Lopen Source is much more than a technological choice: this is a major strategic lever. It strengthens digital sovereignty by reducing dependence on proprietary solutions, fosters interoperability and system portability, and stimulates collaborative innovation by pooling development efforts.

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

As an initiative that popularises free software in rural areas (Wendland, Northern Germany), together with data protection and sovereignty, in workshops and lectures, we consider it particularly important that 1. Free software must be a public good, 2) public institutions should be a model for use and 3) funding and dissemination. It does not matter where (geographically) free software comes from.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

INESC TEC is the largest Portuguese non-profit Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) dedicated to Engineering, Science and Technology, with over 40 years of activity. Software is a foundational asset across all our scientific domains including Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Communications, Robotics, and Power and Energy Systems and underpins applications in strategic sectors such as Energy…

In terms of deteriorating relationships due to EU being too strongly allied with USA. Causes all of us to need to repoviot back towards China, they are not our adversery or enemy, they are a solid partner. But to be that we need inovation, such as Proxmox in Germany, we need ASML in Holland to be free from the imposed extraterritorial restrictions that USA puts on to them

Q1 Strengths, Weaknesses, and Barriers The EU open-source ecosystem provides the foundation for critical public services, yet it faces a structural "Operational Maintenance Gap." While programs like NGI fund new features, long-term maintenance of "Digital Commons" remains chronically undervalued.

Open-source solutions reach their full potential when they are grounded in shared, interoperable standards such as those developed under the Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI - https://spdci.org). Common standards provide open-source projects with technical coherence, legal clarity, and institutional credibility, making them easier to trust, procure, and integrate across public and private systems.

The international standards authorities create barriers to open source adoption, in multiple ways: - they charge high fees for their publications - they use proprietary licences - their processes fail to keep pace with technical advances - their guidance and recommendations (e.g. ISO 26262) expressly impede adoption of well-proven open source projects.

AMETIC, employers of the digital sector in Spain, appreciates the opportunity to contribute to the European Commission’s public consultation on Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems. With this input, we aim to provide a balanced view on the state of play of open source in Europe, identify its main challenges and opportunities, and propose measures that can foster a more open, competitive and innovation-driven…

Filed in Spanish · English published by the European Commission

Contribution from U.Di.Con. In response to the European Commission’s consultation on open digital ecosystems, the Committee views the issue, from the point of view of consumers, as central to freedom of choice, safety, the quality of digital services and the protection of fundamental rights online.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

The Open Source Business Alliance welcomes the European Commission’s initiative for a European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. The European Commission is therefore playing a crucial role in strengthening the digital sovereignty of the European administration.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

I have been working in IT for over 25 years with different operating systems and platforms, including both Linux and Windows environments. In practice, I always use solutions that are technically reasonable, economically justifiable and sustainable in the long term.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Tors feedback: # How to secure cybersecurity in open source projects: Strong cybersecurity for open source is a combination of two things: (1) investment in maintenance of the stack, and (2) investment in innovation.

We have developed RonDB as an open-source database to help support Hopsworks - Europe's only Data/AI platform (it is like Databricks, but with more focus on real-time AI). RonDB is the key technology that enables Hopsworks to power AI at Europe's largest homegrown ECommerce site - Zalando.

1.Open source has two major weaknesses: The first) has always been biased and mistaken, the source lopen is considered to be unprofessional, unsafe, not hand-held, in an unsupported word. The second) open source is a pair of words that reverts to the concept of free software solution, thus intrinsically not considered as professional.

Filed in Italian · English published by the European Commission

For over two years we migrated all our IT infrastructure of VMs and Containers from VMWare to EU based product Proxmox, also using other products from EU as stated below: This includes (not limited): - Mail (Dovecot) - Cloud files (Owncloud) - Cloud calendar (Owncloud) - Password manager (Passbolt) - Intranet wikis

**Jonas STerR| ProxForge | Official Proxmox Partner | Passau** **1. Strengths/weaknesses & barriers:** Strengthen:** Europe has excellent open source projects such as Proxmox VE, SUSE or Nextcloud. These comply with European data protection standards and the Communities operate in a transparent manner. **Weaknesses:** Many good projects remain small and unknown. There is a lack of marketing and professional support.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

Dear Commission Reviewer, On behalf of OSI Europe Foundation and the Open Source Initiative, wed like to thank you for this opportunity to provide feedback on the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a global charity at the heart of the Open Source Community for over 25 years, recognized globally as the authority defining Open Source.

Strengths & weaknesses of the EU open-source sector Strengths Low total cost of ownership open-source have no hidden licensing fees, allowing organisations to replace expensive proprietary stacks with a single, integrated solution. No vendor lock-in Customers can run the software on any hardware and can submit patches to add additional functionality that automatically benefits all others.

OpenSource is now critical of ensuring the sovereignty, transparency and security of information systems. It is a rich ecosystem, but it requires regulatory and financial support to unlock its full value. The main points on which the EU can make a difference are, in my view, the following: — ‘public money, public code’: regulations requiring public money to give rise to public code (OSI Free Licence) – preference…

Filed in French · English published by the European Commission

As the CEO of Inett GmbH, I welcome Inett GmbH’s comments on the open-source initiative as an essential step for the EU’s technological sovereignty. Open Source is the foundation of a secure digital ecosystem. Key points of our feedback: Sovereignty & Security: Open source solutions reduce dependencies on non-EU countries and provide a high level of security for IT systems through supply chain transparency, as well…

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

I am a self-employed IT service provider in Germany, dealing primarily with small and medium-sized enterprises, public institutions and regulated environments, including areas close to KRITIS. My daily work is guided by the recommendations of the BSI (IT-Grundschutz), the requirements of the GDPR and sector-specific security and resilience requirements.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

F6S is pleased to submit the following feedback on behalf of the NOUS consortium (HE project no.101135927) regarding the 'European Open Digital Ecosystems' initiative. Based on the consortiums extensive involvement in Horizon Europe, we have identified three critical operational points: Sustainability and Exploitation of R&I Results: One of the most significant challenges for EU projects is the "valley of death"…