Okay. Good. Thank you. Well, I'm Gal Blondel. I work for the Eclipse Foundation.
Hello. Can you hear me? Is it working fine? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm the other one.
Alberto from Open Nebula. And the topic today, so actually that was a proposal from Alberto.
About how about we talk together at FOSDEM about European open source.
So I think you proposed the topic and I proposed the title, which is,
is European open source a thing? Because, well, over the last, I don't know,
two, three years, maybe more, I have been in lots of events
where I see people who want to do more open source
because the thing that open source is good for Europe.
But at some point, there is always somebody who starts with the idea that,
well, open source is cool, but what about we would do open source
and try to limit it to European companies, to European stakeholders or stuff like that.
And so that's what we want to discuss today.
So we prepared it like a list of questions.
We expect that some of you maybe want to change our point of view.
I think that we will have different point of views on some of the topics.
And, well, let's start. Do you want to define European open source?
Okay. Well, I would like to explain a bit how selfish I am
because this whole session, for me, personally, is second.
Microphone is not on.
I think it's on, but just...
Try to speak as loud as you can.
Louder, like that.
And you hear me without the microphone.
No, but you need to use the microphone because we are recorded.
The live stream, but everybody can hear, even though the microphone isn't on.
Yes?
No, in fact, you have to really reject.
Or share the volume.
Yeah, let's share that one. No problem.
That would be a bit painful, but we're sharing stuff.
Okay, so I just wanted to explain for me, personally, what this session means.
As Gael has mentioned, the concept of European open source has been around for a while.
It's been in the last, yeah, three, four years that it's been discussed
within this kind of new geopolitical environment in which we all live now.
Also, especially at European level.
So, for me, I'm one of the people that's actually pushing for this concept
to be something different from other stuff.
But I also, I can confess, I have my doubts about how we define European open source
and whether that is something that might be divisive or counterproductive.
Even have my position, let's say, and that's also part of my job.
And I'm happy to say, both from my personal level and professional level,
I agree on the things I can defend.
But I also have, as a European, some doubts about this
and what this might imply for the open source sector.
So, for me, this session is also about learning what all of you think about this.
And that's because we thought that it was about time to have an open discussion
and an open debate within the European open source community
to the implications that this concept might have.
Yes, so maybe just a few words about me.
So, I work for the Eclipse Foundation, which moved to its legal incorporation
to Brussels two years ago.
So, and that's very important for us that we are a global organization
established in Brussels.
Because when it comes to the answer to what is European open source,
I think that from my perspective, at least open source and free software,
that's everything we do where you can use, study, modify, and redistribute the software.
And there is nothing to do with Europe.
So, that must be done in Europe, outside Europe.
Everything that is written in Europe should be usable everywhere else.
We should be able to use.
So, that's really sticking to the definitions of the FSF
and the definition of the, well, and the open source definition.
So, still, I think that we can have a specific approach to open source in Europe.
That's how we help European organizations, how we help European companies do more
and understand better in open source.
And that's also why I wanted to start with this topic,
because every time I go in a conference, I have been in conferences
where people were telling, yeah, well, we get money, we invest in open source,
and then we have the problem that what we do in open source could be reused
by non-European companies.
And thinking, oh, my God.
Oh, that's so fucking wrong.
Why do you do that?
So, that's really one part of the message I wanted to share today.
I think we agree on that.
Still, I think that we should be more diligent in Europe about helping European organizations,
helping European companies, helping universities do open source,
produce open source, publish open source, and also be more ambitious
about how to use open source as a vector to project technologies
and to project ideas in the rest of the world.
We can come back to that.
Yeah, so I think, I mean, from my perspective,
coming from the European open source industry sector,
let's say, as a technology provider, as a company that produces open source
and makes money out of the services we provide to customers with this,
I mean, I think we share that concern that, I mean,
open source cannot be something that in any way limits who's going to use that
or puts any barriers to who can improve the technology
or contribute to that technology.
From my perspective, I mean, I've also been involved at several of the European initiatives
for things like data sovereignty and cloud sovereignty,
these kinds of discussions, things like the European Alliance for Industrial Data,
Edge and Cloud.
That's something that the European Commission launched a couple of years ago.
So for me and other people in the sector, I would say,
I think exploring this concept of what European open source means
is kind of a natural step after we discuss the problem we have in the market now
with cloud providers.
So from our perspective, we recognize, we identify there's a market failure
in Europe in terms of access to different cloud providers
or the dominance of a number of non-European hyperscalers.
You all know the names.
Let's fix that because the European players are playing in this advantage here.
So for us, the next step is, OK, so what are the technologies
that European cloud providers are using?
Are those led by European organizations?
Are those roadmaps defined in Europe?
Or are those technologies defined and implemented by non-EU companies and organizations?
So for us, it was like the next step, like, OK, what if we apply this sense
of this concept of sovereignty of technological autonomy, let's say,
also to the, not just the proprietary software, but the open source software
that supports all these cloud infrastructures in European cloud providers,
but all the companies as well.
Can we do that?
I mean, can we get some understanding of what that will imply for Europe
in terms of getting the industry involved in producing and maintaining
the technologies that they consume, not just being mere spectators
of what all the companies and organizations produce outside Europe most of the times?
So that was the kind of the next discussion we had.
Any questions at some point or maybe somebody wants to shout or say something?
What do you think?
What do you feel about the concept of European open source?
It's an oxymoron.
Why?
Good.
Can you repeat what you hear?
It's an oxymoron, he said.
It's an oxymoron.
Why?
I explain why it's an oxymoron.
Yeah, I just don't understand why you put that adjective in front of this now, right?
I mean, that's like, you can do that, it makes chromatic sense,
but I don't understand what the meaning would be.
Mm-hmm.
And I can.
So for me it's, OK, this is still not working at all.
Yeah, it's in the live screen.
Yeah, it's working for the live stream.
I think we agree.
And to be honest, that's not the controversial part in it.
I think that, and to the point is that, yes, open source is global
and everything that intends to limit open source scope is certainly not what we want.
Still, that's more to not take it as an adjective, but to take it as a, OK,
we have open source, open source is global.
And what we may want as European citizen working for a global organization
or as another European citizen with leading a European company,
what we may want is to have a different strategy, like an industry strategy,
to sustain and develop open source better, differently in Europe.
And so I completely agree with that.
Yeah.
And so that you should have policies and frameworks and a whole bunch of other types of things.
So let's use that example, right?
Water forms the shape of the container that it's putting, right?
So when one talks about what water is, right,
one talks about the fact that it's in a bucket or in a cup or in something
because the framework gives the structure to the water.
But you don't talk about whether the water is going to be bucket.
A bucket to the water.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
We are not, OK.
I'm French in Spanish, so it's possibly grammatically not the right approach
to the topic in English.
OK, that's what I'm going to do for the discussion, right?
At least I think that we set the stage for the conversation, yeah?
I think it's an accurate term, but I think there's a missing word at the end of it.
It should be European open source industry.
Yeah?
Because for me it seems like it's very standard.
So the comment is that it should be European open source industry.
Yeah, and that's another aspect that I like about it.
Yeah, because for me I think it's the only concern I've heard, like why this matters,
like it's the one about competition, so competition with US and other global companies.
And that is predominantly sort of like an industry concern.
I think, for example, like there might be other concerns around sort of like governance
of open source projects like that are based in Europe or have predominantly sort of like
European contributors and things like that.
But from my experience working with those projects, none of them have sort of, and at
least intentionally sort of like isolationist sort of like tendencies, they might be isolated
just by fact of like who they know or who they don't know.
That's the diversity of something like that.
There's not, yeah, yeah, but there's not, it's less about lack of outreach rather than
we want to be isolated.
I think most of these projects would rather be not seen as European, but rather as part
of more open source movement.
Do you want to react?
So if we could please just have the speakers call on anyone who wants to speak, we'll bring
the mic to you, and then you have to speak really loudly into the mic, but please call
on people and let us know, we'll bring the mic to them.
So my take on that is that, yes, there is something that we could define as European
open source industry.
I think there's also something we could call the European open source technology.
And from my perspective, that is open source technology whose roadmap and whose governance
is controlled by European organizations, yes.
It doesn't mean external or non-EU actors cannot or contributors cannot join that community
or contribute to that technology.
But the roadmap, the vision of that technology, the values, if you want to talk about that,
the governance for this that control those technologies are under European hands.
Sorry, before, I have slightly different opinion, and my opinion is here on the question seven.
I think that definitely one of the advantages of open source is that we move the needle
from having access to proprietary IP to having the skills to study, to understand, to master,
to evolve, to develop the open source software.
And I think that what we need to do, what's the next step?
So you represent a relatively small company, and I think that we have a vibrant ecosystem
of small open source companies in Europe.
And I think that what we need to do to go to the next step in terms of European power
in open source, technology impact in open source is to involve the larger companies.
And in Europe, we have a characteristic which is that the larger companies are not software
companies.
They are automotive companies, they are aircraft companies, they are utilities, et cetera.
So we have a lot that is being done in terms of policies in engaging the government.
So we have a governmental support, et cetera.
And I think that if we really want to get more leadership from Europe in this topic
of global open source, that's really when we manage to involve the big companies.
So we work, for example, with automotive companies, mostly Germans, but we have a Volkswagen,
Mercedes, Bosch, Continental, ZF, et cetera.
So that's companies that it's very interesting.
Some of them have been doing software for a very long time, embedded software, et cetera.
And they are slowly getting to use open source to collaborate together.
And I think that's really fundamental because they are likely about to create software that
would be game changing for them, but also for the rest of the industry.
So I think that there is a happy battle which is, okay, what can we do with open source?
And on the other side, you have the big, the GAFAM and big software vendors.
We don't have this big software industry in Europe.
But open source is really a tactical and potentially a strategic tool that can be used by all our
industry.
And one of the problems is that in this industry, all the managers, they have no clue about
software.
They have no clue about open source, even less.
And so they think that they hear about open source like, oh, it's open, it's cool, et cetera.
And I think that collectively, we need to propagate the message that, well, doing open
source is, you know, you need to take care about your community.
You need to take care.
You need to have a governance.
You need to have rules of code of conduct, et cetera.
And so that's really something where that may be counterintuitive for them when you talk
to, I don't know, the CEO of an automotive company, that may be counterintuitive for
them that open source can be good for them.
But I think that when they engage with open source, that will also be good for you.
Because they need you, and that will really grow how we collaborate in open source.
Because for the moment, and that's the reaction and what creates the fact that people want
to talk about European open source, that's exactly what you describe in ways of governance.
And for the moment, I can understand the frustration of some European actors, not the system integrators,
because system integrators, they take the technologies, they create a solution with
this technology, and wherever the technology comes from, they are happy.
But for everybody else, to some extent, the fact that they have those open source technologies
coming from mostly the U.S. is, okay, so what is our impact on it?
Sorry.
Go ahead, please, if you want to move away from IP, please do not refer to it as European
open source, but put another word on it, like European open source initiative, framework,
community, something that refers to all the aspects aside from the software code.
Because when you're talking about European open source, you think about the code, the
IP, and all this stuff.
With that, please use a framework or something, so that you describe the whole approach.
But my interest is leadership, and my mind is more leadership, maybe, so we put it somewhere
and describe it.
Yeah, so when you skip away from IP and from non-Europeans using open source software,
and you can frame it in a better way, so please refer to it to like an initiative or framework
or something that you can put multiple approaches to it, but please make a big, please, please
do.
Okay, just quickly, I have one here, then I saw this one next, then there was one up
there, then this one, and then here, so I will try my best.
Okay, so this might not only work without the mask.
One short question about the European open source debate.
Have you ever considered not to try to frame it as a kind of license, because we have seen
from the development of the approach of the German car makers to make a German car operating
system that they paid horribly amounts of pain when they forked off certain line exports
and spent a triple digit amount of millions on something that they then had to scroll
back, thus it might be more useful to go to open source and give them some kind of label
as we are a company and we maintain it and then eat the liability that comes with using
open source and can be contracted given that the Cyber Resilience Act implies companies
in Europe to actually take the liabilities that come from using open source, so instead
of making it a license thing, you basically go to a certain software stack that you maintain
that you can still freely integrate developments from all over the world and then you basically
put a stamp on it, like if you want to use it, you can contact us and pay us a service
level agreement to do the maintenance for that and then we will also take the liability
with regards to the liability that will come with the Cyber Resilience Act where companies
have to accept the risk that come from open source and an IT security aspect.
Would that be a different spin to actually fostering a money flow into European open
source companies and actually create a business model?
I don't know, but we could try, just a clarification, I mean just put something that is going to
be a real question that we will have to answer in Europe in a few months time I would say.
So let's say we in Europe decide that we want to develop a specific piece of technology
that we think is crucial for Europe.
We want that piece of technology to be open source, it's going to be funded with European
fundings and all this, we managed to get the European industry on board, not just as a
consumers, passive consumers of open source but as active maintainers and developers
of open source around this technology and we want this technology in the long term to
respond to European, to the priorities of the European Union in terms of the industry
and the geo-strategic priorities of the continent.
We want that technology to respond to that, how can we protect that from let's say a
hyperscaler contributing with a thousand developers to that project and kind of taking over the
governance structures of that project, how can we from that scenario protect that open
source technology as I define that, is that a way we can do that without excluding non-European
companies from the governance bodies.
I'm asking, because that's going to be a question that we are going to have to respond
in a few weeks time, sorry in a few months time with thinking of a specific piece of
technology that will be developing in Europe by the end of this year, it's probably going
to be the largest open source project in Europe.
So here's next and then there was one over there, another over there, then over here
and then over there.
So yeah, real quick question maybe hopefully, I find it very difficult to discuss these
topics in abstract terms.
So I wonder do you have concrete examples where kind of important open source projects,
where project management, the governance exercise or the development happened against
interests of European consumers, contributors and if you have such concrete cases, do you
know whether this is because the Europeans didn't get involved or because the decision
was really done against them though they were engaged.
Well in terms of open source projects that are large in control let's say by non-EU
companies or vendors, there are a number of examples there, you want me to give you some
names?
Not exactly for the projects, that I can understand, but where the decisions, project
management happened against European interests and not that many open source projects are
of course led by U.S. companies and organizations and so forth, but I'm explicitly asking for
controversial decisions project management governance because it's more concrete.
So he's asking me for specific examples in which European companies have been sidelined
by in some decisions in open source projects, I don't know, it doesn't matter.
It's about the risk, it's risk management.
So how we prevent things from happening, how we prevent vendors from dropping their support
to an open source project overnight and collapsing the sustainability of that project because
in Europe we have relied for so long on non-European companies to develop these technologies and
maintain them that we've lost the skills and the capabilities to take over.
That's the problem.
When we're talking about thousands of millions of euros invested in technology, I'll give
you an example of that.
There's something called the important project of common European interest and next generation
cloud infrastructure and services, Ipsi-THIS.
That's mobilizing thousands of millions from European funding to create a whole alternative
stack of technologies for managing the cloud and the edge in Europe.
That's only for European companies and that is going to produce I think in my opinion
the largest ever open source project in Europe.
How we protect that, if we open it up to Google, AWS, Microsoft, the companies for whom this
technology is being designed to neutralize their dominance in the market and prevent
them from taking over the edge computing market as well.
That's a practical problem.
That's a topic on which we will likely disagree, but that's fine, that's why we have a conversation.
Because from my perspective, I think that if you talk about Ipsi, if you talk about edge
computing projects, I think that so there are effectively millions of euros that are
spent on helping European companies and that means companies with eight quarters in Europe
because I remember I was in such a project and one of the comments we had when it was
rejected is that you cannot get this specific funding because some partners are not European.
So that's not a team with, you know, that's not just a company with a subsidiary in Europe,
etc.
That's really it.
So we have the funding mechanism.
That's already in place.
And so next, the question is not how do we restrict some of the funding to help European
companies?
The question is how do we make it effective because, and I think that we have a fundamental
problem in Europe about that, is that we spend lots of money and at some point in research
projects, I don't know if you have been involved in those research projects, but in research
or innovation projects, we tell people, hey, you need to do open source.
And some of them, and I would say 80% of them maybe understand that they just need to publish
a bandonware on GitHub to check the green box and they think, hey, come on, we published
in open source and we don't.
So I think that we also have to do all parts and to understand that, yes, when you do open
source, you need to build a community, you need to build a governance, you need to, and
even, I imagine, I dream maybe that a group of European companies, because they identify
that a project that has been created somewhere else is very important for them, takes over,
ends enough developers in a meritocratic environment to take over the governance of the project
and to have more, more committers, et cetera.
So I think, you know, there is, I know in most countries, in most continents, we have
a, we can see some protectionist approach and I don't like it, and my organization doesn't
like it either, but I think that it's really exactly, we should exactly do the opposite,
that we have the framework to, we have the framework to fund some developments.
We have the incentive or we have the requirement to make the development open source.
The problem is that at some point, it is lost in some of, you know, fine-grained open source
initiatives that never reach a critical mass.
So of course, when I say that, I have an interest, is that, okay, at the Equip Foundation, we
can help people group together to reach such a critical mass.
But I mean it, I mean that there are plenty of open source foundations, there is the Apache
Foundation.
We are here in Europe, and we are incorporated in Europe, post-it code in Europe.
And I want to see a more critical mass of people who, and companies who group together
and have the ambition not to be reactive, but to really, well, just create the next technology
for edge computing, for example.
And the next technology for edge computing, that will be open source.
Whether it's started bootstrap in Europe, or it's bootstrap in the US, or it's bootstrap
in China, everybody at some point will converge to a few of those technologies.
So we have, you see, we have a, we need to do better when we do open source, and I don't
say that for you.
No, I agree, I mean, there's no discussion about that.
So I can tell you, the next big tool for edge cloud in Europe is going to be open source.
So, and that's it.
And that involves the main industrial actors in the continent.
So that's a fact.
We only have, it has to be approved by DJ competition and all that, but that's minor details.
But if that happens and goes well, we'll have a five year project, five year long project
developing some first class open source in Europe.
And I agree with you, we have to mobilize, I mean, the whole community beyond the small
technology providers, and we have to invest those fundings better and more strategically
as well.
So as a company, for instance, I would love if European projects hadn't been horizon
Europe or research or innovation projects, hadn't been spending this money in small pieces
of software to contribute to OpenStack, for instance, which is our competitor, and not
to OpenNevla or some other European providers.
So the last, one of the most striking things of the thing, the work we've been doing in
a couple of years is bringing the main European open source providers into the European research
and innovation ecosystem because they weren't there.
People like Susie, like MariaDB, Lindit, I mean, these people have never, ever, ever considered
even accessing, trying to get this funding or contributing to research and innovation
projects in Europe.
On the other hand, we find most of the US open source vendors, but also cloud providers,
very well positioned in that area.
So that's something we also have to work on, to mobilize all these resources to actually
help European open source companies being most sustainable in their own time and get
these contributions more fluently.
So we have a question over here, afterwards, I registered a question here, then one over
there, then I saw one over here, and I saw one at the front.
One request, if you want to ask a question, please put your hand up and then try to get
eye contact with me, then I can acknowledge that I saw you.
It's else a little bit difficult in this large room, so, handing over.
So what I think is that, like, back to maybe this definition part, where we have a European
open source, I feel like the open source part of that is very much, very much global.
So there's no, it shouldn't be localized, or it shouldn't be local to any area, really.
And what, then we have in Europe, what we should maybe improve on is the, like, those
two aspects, the using open source software and the creating open source software.
And I can't exactly speak for those major projects, which are, like, funded by huge
companies, either, well, in Europe or mostly in the US right now.
But what I see is just a lot of individual projects from individual people who just contribute
to open source, perhaps even their free time, or at a small company or whatever, and, right,
but they still are, they are still the backbone of maybe an entire industry without that industry
even realizing.
So I feel like this is where we, as maybe the European Union, or as Europe in general,
could dramatically improve on, is just to focus on those essential projects.
I mean, there's this, I forgot the name, a German fund for exactly those projects, kind
of project, like the base project, kind of small, but still really important, and, hmm?
Yeah, exactly, right.
So I would love to see more of these kind of initiatives.
And I think that's really important, not, I mean, I don't know if, like, those governance
aspects of open source are even that important.
I see it if we are actually the main consumer of something, or we have specific goals we
want to realize in open source, as Europe, but just, I feel like just empowering those
individuals, or companies, or anyone who's contributing to important open source projects
regardless of if they are, have a government's role or not, is really beneficial.
Yeah.
Well, I like the topic of empowering people.
I think that when we, so when we fund, when we fund open source, we have a, the topic
is that sometimes maybe we don't have enough money going down to the developers.
Because you know, in some of the, in some of the places where I hear a lot about open
source, open source, open source, open source, open source, sometimes I hardly find the developers.
And that's, so that's, we have the problem on the two sides of the spectrum.
I mean, we have, on the policy aspect, we have policy people who are talking about open
source, and that's fine, I think that we need to, to potentially do better to, to characterize
what we mean by open source and to make it better consumable by, by the policy people.
And on the other side, we have also, I think the, the romantic view of open source being
done by individuals, like what you described.
I think that we have, especially here at FOSDEM, okay, we have all the individuals coming for
the weekend, et cetera, all the volunteers, but I think that even in, in the room, we
have also lots of people who are doing open source for their, as their day job.
So that's, I think that I understand the individual aspect.
I think that there are also lots of projects that are not really supported by individuals,
but by some kind of organizations that requires those, those projects.
And I think that after HubBleed and LookForShell, et cetera, I think that to some extent, the
industry is embracing the topic and trying to, how do you call it?
Do, do better and potentially, hire those individuals on contractual basis, et cetera,
to take care of it.
So.
Yeah.
I mean, that's something, you know, any of you attended the Open Forum Europe summit
yesterday, but there was an interesting, if you can go recommend, if you look at the,
the talk by the, it was the CEO of Github, right, it's very interesting.
He was arguing about the AI Act and how open source would be left outside the scope of
the AI Act because of the nature of the open source being run mainly by, by individuals
and then the contrast is when you go to argue against the Cyber Resilience Act, then the
argument changes.
Look, I mean, we are companies, every open source is at some point commercial, so, so
I think we have to, again, discuss within, especially in Europe as well, the, I mean,
how we, we explain what we do, how we explain what the community is, and it changes from
different parts of the, I mean, if you look at the technology stack and different projects,
I mean, some projects are run by volunteers, some, some projects are run entirely by the
communities, I mean, all projects are run by companies alone.
I mean, our project, we write alone.
I mean, we control the roadmap, we control the releases, and you can, you're free to
contribute with the site, we accept that or not, and that's it.
Other projects, they have a different governance, it's a community of companies, and they somehow
benefit from that shirt, and that's, that, that shirt knowledge, and that's perfectly
fine.
They collaboration among competitive, and competitors, and that's perfectly okay.
I mean, there are different models, and they are, I think they are all okay, but each of
them have their own particularities, so this, this concept of sovereignty in Europe, I think
especially relevant for those projects in which they are, they are mainly maintained
and controlled by, by, by companies, by open source companies, or other companies, so that's,
that's, just to frame a bit the, this, this, the discussion, I mean, from my perspective,
so those are the kind of projects that, for me personally, and for all this, create some
concern in terms of, if we develop these projects in Europe, and we have this ambition of having
the European industry heavily involved in maintaining these projects, how we protect
these technologies and these communities from, from the very best, I mean, the very same companies
we are creating this technology, not against, but, you understand me, right?
I would like to come back to the European project, and I think it's really important,
we want to be democratic, it means freedom, and seeing what, what's happening right now
in the world, it's like woohoo, so democracy and sustainability, I think it's part of the
European project, and so how can we be leaders in, and I prefer free software, because free
is in freedom, not as in free beer.
How can we use that for interoperability that leads to right to repair and, and that helps
sustainability in the long run?
So how can we put open source European software to help build the European way of doing stuff,
if I can say it like that, and I think that the adversary of, of European open source
software is international close software, more than international open source software,
I don't know, I mean, when I see that all the better universities are sold to, to Microsoft,
we have a problem, like, and how can we change that using European companies that are using
open source software?
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the, that's, those are a couple of big questions, yeah.
I mean, the, I think, as we see this debate taking place, I think, at certain, at some
parts of the technological world, let's say, part of this, this stack, we are happily beyond
the debate between open source or proprietary source.
I mean, that's, and that's something in, I understand in some other areas, it's not
that, that, that clear, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a vaguely sale, I mean, you have
to fight a lot with, with users and other companies to trust open source.
In some parts, in some, in some areas, that's, I think we are, we are beyond that.
So I'll tell you a very small anecdote.
We have the General Assembly of the industrial,
what's the name?
European Alliance for Industrial Data and Cloud
in December, for instance.
It's only for, it's a body of,
it's an alliance, industrial alliance
set by the commission or supported by the commission
led by the industry, only for European companies, okay?
We are defining the roadmap, the technological roadmap
for the cloud and the, and it's a bit of a promotion
to have another talk at five in the Sovereign Cloud
that from about the specifics of this initiative.
So we are defining the technological priorities
that we need the commission to help us co-fund
in the next years around it's cloud and data.
Only for Europeans.
And when we have this General Assembly here in Brussels
in December, there are three working groups,
the cloud and its working group,
the one for member states,
members from different governments.
And there's a specific working group
for the fence and aeronaptic sector.
And for me personally, I'm old enough to have seen
some changes in the sector.
For me, watching at this five representatives across Europe
from the main defense companies saying they understand,
I mean, they want to use open source.
They do want to use open source.
They just need help to use open source.
But they want, that was surprising for me.
Okay, it's the defense and sector, okay?
But you know, I mean, this is people
with a very specific mindset and very critical projects
and very hard requirements on the contracts they get
and all that stuff.
They were saying, we want to use open source.
We just need to see how to actually put it under the requirements
we have in the sector, because that's what we want to do.
And they want to contribute to these projects.
We just need to tell them how exactly,
with their peculiarities and their particularities.
But in some areas, we're happily beyond that discussion.
And we are, I think, mature, I mean, the market in that area,
so the sector is mature enough to get into the nuances
of what do we want to do.
Into the nuances of what do we mean by open source?
Who's controlling these open source?
Who's developing these?
What are the risks of taking, assuming,
or using this technology or that other technology?
I mean, obviously, I have to confess,
that's a debate as a small open source European company.
This is an environment that benefits
the small company like us and others,
because it helps us differentiate from others.
But that's what it is.
I mean, we have the European open source sector,
you know what it is.
I mean, we have a few larger companies,
but most of us are smaller.
We've been having for years,
producing very good technologies, I think.
But that's what it is, so yeah.
Here's the question.
So we have one last question here.
I saw many others registered this,
but we can't take any further questions after this one.
So I'm very sorry about those who gave their sign to me,
and we can't take your question.
Yeah, thank you.
It's not so much a question anymore, given the time,
but I think, given what's on the slide right now,
is European open source?
I think you talk a lot about governance of it.
I think it's about dependence on external actors,
which are not a Europe.
I think we want to be self sovereign,
so as it's now the hype.
But I think we should have expertise in it.
It doesn't necessarily need to be European development.
You need European expertise to judge it,
and to, if somebody decides to stop that,
we can take over.
It's not so much that we created in the first place,
but we need to build the expertise,
not only in development, but also in knowledge
about using it, promoting it.
I think that's one of the things we just lack education in.
We're only forging a project between it and maintaining it.
Exactly.
We need more education on both development
and promotion of open source and using it.
I think that's the thing.
We need European education on this.
Yeah, I think we agree on that.
And in all honesty, when I put that sentence,
and again, I'm French, that may be incorrect English.
But my goal was to bring us to quickly conclude
that the short answer is no.
But I think that we must have a European industrial strategy
for open source.
And I think that we at least can agree on that.
And we have lots of talks about open source
in the European setup.
And it was mentioned in one of the questions with the CRE.
And I think that, OK, on one side, for me,
that's really interesting to see that the cyber
resilience act mentions open source as an exception.
But the way it mentions open source as an exception
is something that is almost not acceptable for lots of people
in open source because that creates lots of concerns.
And so on one side, we have incentives, lots of incentives
to do more open source in Europe.
And on the other side, we are creating regulations
that could break the way to redistribute software.
So that would really be a problem.
And that was my conclusion.
So your conclusion, and we are done.
My conclusion is that the time's up.
Thank you, everyone.