The European Commission (EC) is putting together a European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy initiative. In order to better develop and improve the initiative, they’ve sought feedback from interested stakeholders in the form of an open call. Since this initiative could significantly help the development and funding of open-source software in Europe and beyond, Igalia submitted a response based in our experiences and containing a few suggestions. We’re sharing our feedback to the EC with you all to be explicit about our commitment to sustainable open-source software as well as our two cents in terms of how Europe can leverage open-source software to bolster its digital sovereignty.

Our Response

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. We welcome these new steps to increase Europe’s technological sovereignty based on open source solutions, and we are willing to contribute with our resources and knowledge to advance that goal. We would also like to make some high level comments about the existing situation:

1. Properly directed funding can have have a major impact on open source technologies and software sovereignty.
   • While we strongly welcome and encourage EU funding, the complexity of gaining access to it for funding open source projects has historically been very prohibitive for us. We believe that it is crucial to not only add funding, but to radically streamline these processes. The EU Sovereign Tech Fund, if scaled up, could provide a good blueprint.
   • Funding should not focus just on pure R&D, but also long-term maintenance and the production of industry-ready solutions. Up to 100% of direct costs should be available for projects producing open source output.
   • More than anything, reliable sources of financing should be created for European companies that want to invest in open source technologies for the European market. Public procurement or stable public-private partnerships, among others, could be key tools to tackling this problem.

2. However, we must also avoid basing this on a naive understanding of software sovereignty. We should not think we have to reimplement everything from the ground up, or insist that all decisions be made only by Europeans. We must be able to keep working with friends and allies all over the world, when possible. We believe that we must help to advance viable governance solutions for international open source ecosystems where Europeans are major players and feasibly able to fork if necessary.

3. We believe open source is strategically important for Europe, but that open source alone is not sufficent to sovereignty.
   • In the short-term, there are critical gaps to fill. In some cases, our basic digital infrastructure in Europe is 100% controlled from elsewhere and dependent on foreign companies. There cannot be “kill switches” for mission-critical software deployed in our institutions and companies. This has to be solved ASAP. Some compromises that iteratively improve the status quo might be necessary.
   • There are long-term problems which will not be solved immediately, but where Europe could be a leading actor for change, and where we should focus on getting the fundamentals right. Protocol-based solutions where the playing field is defined in a fair manner for everyone and where applications can be swapped in and out as long as they respect that common protocol are a very strong guarantee of sovereignty and freedom. We believe we should focus our energies, in terms of investment and development, on the “common protocol and diversity of applications” model: that of the internet, the web, and new developments like open social (atproto, activitypub and others). We should expand that model to as many places as possible.

These are just some brief thoughts about some what we understand to be key issues, both urgent and long-term. Again, we are happy to be part of this process and we are happy to continue this conversation with the Commission and other members of the community.