Open Source Summit Europe 2024

Collaboration in the public sector typically happens between similar organizations and through an overarching coordinating body. How a-typical is then the collaboration between the Dutch Tax Office and the semi-public Grid Operator Alliander. Yet the goals for their open source activities are similar and thus the OSPO's are collaborating to establish sound Open Source practices. Meanwhile there is a larger community of public and semi-public OSPO's that are taking on multiple shared goals. In this presentation Karel Rietveld and Nico Rikken will go over their learnings: - Unique benefits of an OSPO-collaboration that is national and consists of (semi-)public organizations - Practical examples of collaboration - How a small collaboration has grown to a larger collaboration - The road to the current working structure with working groups

Understand how a public administration can build an open source digital workplace. We will present the current state of the solution itself and our methodology for ensuring the robustness of the underlying open source libraries and applications.

This talk describes a journey that began almost a quarter of a century ago. The first attempts to establish open source in Germany failed. Only with a cloud and digital sovereignty strategy was it possible to establish FOSS in the German administration. The speaker was involved in various initiatives, the Verwaltungsgitlab (OpenCode.de), the strategic papers of the IT Planning Council, OpenDesk, the founding of the Sovereign Tech Fund and is still centrally involved in the updating of the strategy. It provides an insight into the foundations of a private cloud strategy that ultimately paved the way for FOSS. The vision is a digitally sovereign administration cloud that ensures a secure and automated implementation of modern administration processes through DevSecOps as the engine of the processes. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The importance of digital sovereignty in the public sector has been amplified in the European Union (EU) due to recent geopolitical changes and the risk of relying on foreign digital technology and services such as cloud and artificial intelligence (AI). This issue has gained significant attention, prompting calls for collective action to manage these risks. Therefore, it's crucial to explore potential strategies that the public sector can adopt to reduce these risks. The role of Open Source Software (OSS) in enhancing the digital sovereignty of the public sector is a significant point of discussion. We aim to showcase some of the actions currently being undertaken by the public sector in Europe and Germany to achieve digital sovereignty, highlighting the crucial role of OSS in these strategies. Additionally, we will share real-world examples to demonstrate the ongoing efforts, potential opportunities, and challenges that need to be tackled.

Join us in taking a look at how the Sovereign Tech Fund, a state-funded organization in Germany, has been developing ways to strengthen and support the free and open source ecosystem in the public interest. This ecosystem underpins the digital infrastructure, in particular the software components and tools, on which governments, private companies, and individuals rely. But what does it mean to strengthen this ecosystem? In this session, we’ll look at the different ways STF is putting public money to work for this mission. Some issues STF is working on include: a) Limited funding for long-term maintenance and security work b) Fragmented career and employment prospects for project maintainers c) Growing the pool of open source maintainers and contributors We’ll include lessons from the first two years of our existence, some insights from our survey of open source maintainers, as well ideas on how all the different parts in the FOSS landscape can work together for a more resilient and fair system. This is a work in progress, but we’re trying to ensure the software our societies depend on is sustainable in the long-term.

We want to take you along in how modest yet "BOLD" ideas can spark and catalyze transformative organisational changes in the public sector. This session traces the evolution of small, innovative concepts into collaborative open source projects that revolutionize bureaucratic processes and cultural mindsets. We'll highlight the importance of discovering and collaborating with motivated and inspiring individuals who share a vision for change and embodying that change. By sharing our experience, you will gain insights into how these partnerships are crucial for activating and navigating the complexities of government structures, gaining support, creating momentum, and sustaining it. We transformed innovative sparks into powerful engines for systemic change by leveraging agile methodologies, engaging stakeholders, and building a coalition of champions. We aim to empower inspired individuals to continue championing their ideas, demonstrating that even the smallest initiative, when supported by the right people, can lead to significant transformations in governance and the way we serve the public.

In 2024, DINUM has partnered with NLnet to launch the BlueHats Awards: https://nlnet.nl/bluehatsprize/2024/ The prize will identify and support 4 FLOSS maintainers and give them 10K€ to encourage them to continue their work. The session will present the prize, lessons learned, and evolve into a discussion with NLnet and the winning maintainers.

The European Union has approved a €1.2 billion investment in the development of the first interoperable and openly accessible European data processing ecosystem, known as IPCEI-CIS. This initiative aims to reduce reliance on external providers and promote open source technologies. Despite skepticism about whether a state-driven initiative can foster open and collaborative software development, the EU's decision is one of the largest sovereignty-focused initiatives ever undertaken by the organization. The IPCEI-CIS project offers an alternative model based on leveraging European open source for mobilizing the many technological and innovation capabilities in the continent and creating together a Next-Generation European Platform for the Datacenter-Cloud-Edge Continuum. This powerful “made in EU” alternative will offer vendor neutrality and a sustainable future based on global collaboration, but fully aligned with the values and priorities of the European Union. In this presentation, we will discuss the challenges and opportunities that this project presents to citizens and developers, and how it will redefine the way we produce open source software in Europe.