 really pleased to have this opportunity to speak at the Open Source Summit Europe. Many of you are old friends of Open Forum Europe and I have known you for years, yet I believe this is the first time that I'm ever presenting at a Linux Foundation event, so I'm really happy to be here with you. Being here really represents a conscious strategic shift in our organization and the way we communicate. As the leading think tank promoting openness in IT in Brussels, we've been talking to policymakers for over 15 years, trying to convince them to take Open Source seriously. But today, I'm here to make the case to you rather that it's time for the Open Source community to take public policy more seriously and argue that the time to do so is now. But first, perhaps you'll allow me to indulge in a personal story to illustrate how far we've come, also with Open Source in Brussels. 12 years ago, I had just started working with Open Forum Europe and with some colleagues, I had registered to participate in an event organized by the European Commission on standardization, I believe. And we're told informally that the organizers had asked for extra security because the Open Source people were attending. And we were seen as dangerous first and probably last for me personally. Anyway, fast forward to last week and the commission has just published a communication that outlines its new Open Source strategy. It's a bold document that not only recognizes the role of Open Source in underpinning most of the technology today, but also fully embracing it and spells out the role of Open Source and openness in achieving the twin transformations towards a green and digital Europe. So I urge you all to read it because it's really a bold document. But where does this leave us? The Open Source development model now runs the show. We have a European commission that's committed to the openness, to the importance of Open Source for Europe's digital future. Is the job done? Can we all go home? No, it's really now that Open Source is big. It's everywhere that the real political challenges emerge. And it's when your code is fundamental to the technologies that build our societies, that you have new responsibilities to help solve the large challenges that society faces. And policymakers are expecting you to step up. And I prefer to put it like this in a positive call for action, but actually change is coming, whether you like it or not, and really whether you get engaged or not. Governments everywhere and in Europe are stepping in to regulate the tech space in the coming years and they have reason to. In Brussels right now, big pieces of legislation are being prepared in order to hold platforms responsible, to regulate AI and how data is handled and even to create a new industrial strategy based on the digital transformation. And that's just to name a few. And really all these policy efforts will impact Open Source in different ways. Open Source may not be the direct target for regulation, but by being everywhere, by winning as Open Source has done, it will inadvertently at least get affected. And so these efforts, where do they come from? Why is this happening now? Well, I think that in large part, they stem from an increased geopolitical tension. There is a sense of urgency coming from the impression that Europe is not autonomous, it's not resilient or some like to put it, it's not sovereign. And indeed, this concept of digital sovereignty is really being heard a lot in the tech policy discussions right now and is seen as an impetus for action. It's not new, Europe's autonomy has been a political concern for decades, but the way it's currently defined in the context of EU policy, I think was introduced by Emmanuel Macron in his Sorbonne speech in September 2017 and has since come to underpin a lot of the digital policy discussions that are going on right now. But if we go beyond the buzzword, the current buzzword, what does this digital sovereignty mean in practice? And why is this both a challenge and an opportunity for the Open Source community? I believe that it comes down to a sense of control, control of our infrastructure, especially the parts that are considered as critical to core functions of our society. And as we know, Open Source is there, running large parts of it. And the sense of control in my view, there are two paths to achieving it. The first is one where we make our world smaller in order to feel that we are in charge. For example, develop European standards with only European stakeholders or buying only from European-based companies. The second, however, is control through openness. Looking at it from a software perspective, this means having access to the code, being able to choose and change vendors, voiding lock-in, you know all of this. And if we bring that concept to the geopolitical level, you can see that the same messages of control through openness have the potential to resonate well in an unstable world. If politicians choose the first path, however, and there is a risk of this, I am convinced that we might get a sense of control, not actual control, and innovation and knowledge exchange will suffer. And by extension, open source in Europe will suffer. So looking at open source from a geopolitical perspective, I see that we can help solve this challenge of control without making our world smaller. So what is it that we're talking about when we say that open source can help us get more control and why is it so crucial now? It's worth repeating. Consider now the old story of lock-in of our desktop environments. That was the big fight. That's the time I got involved first in open source. This challenge of lock-in when we are digitizing all aspects of society, be it in healthcare, agriculture, smart cities, how can we help digitize our societies in a global world at the technological forefront without losing control? I think the open source model and open technologies have a major role to play here. Avoiding lock-in, the classic advocacy fight of open source is now geopolitical. This challenge I think is of way greater magnitude than those of earlier political fights. Open source advocates have engaged in and I include myself there. So where are we? Open source might have won in the marketplace, but in order to step up and meet today's challenges, we have to sort out some of our limiting beliefs. The first is an internal belief. I believe among members of the open source community. And again, I include myself here. There is still a notion of being the challengers, the underdog, the disruptors. Well, open source is now everywhere, including in public services, underpinning e-government services. With that comes challenges and responsibilities. It means you are the establishment. When you are big, that's when you need to start talking to policymakers and to take policymaking and regulation seriously. And here, paradoxically, I think we are up against another limiting belief. And notwithstanding the excellent open source strategy of the European Commission, let's keep in mind that there are, I would say three general groups among public officials when it comes to open source. The first is sort of the open source believers. They are excited about the possibilities I outlined earlier. Then there is the old guard, if I can call it that, which is still strong that looks at open source with suspicion are concerned that it is not secure and just a cheaper alternative. And finally, we have really the biggest group, those who never think about open source. It's never been on their radar or maybe they have a general feeling that it has something to do with the hackers, with hackers in basements, nothing wrong with that. And so paradoxically, I think we are everywhere and experts know this, but the vast majority in the public sector are not aware. They see open source as something niche, at best I would say. And important, I think to note is that not being thought of is sometimes something good, but when governments look to regulate the tech space, being unknown can be dangerous or at least have serious consequences. I'll tell you another short story to illustrate this. A couple of years ago, the commission published a communication on standards and patents. And when we asked or rather complained about the fact that there was no mention of royalty-free licensing, no mention of open source and how it's impacted. The answer from the European Commission was simply not a single open source company had come to them and asked to have a conversation or filled out the consultation document. And so think about this. Not a single party had come, not a single stakeholder had come to talk to them about this. And so being part of the political discussion had implications then and I think will have serious implications in the future. If we don't engage. But it's not all doom and gloom. I think today we have actually a real opportunity to engage and to be proactive when it comes to engaging with policymakers. And last week, as I mentioned, the European Commission published this document. Its latest open source strategy. A very ambitious document. And stating that open source plays an important role in the digital autonomy of Europe. Saying also that open source can give Europe a chance to create and maintain its own independent digital approach and stay in control of its processes, its information and its technology. So what does the commission want with these efforts and these statements? And I believe we were told openly what they want by Pierce O'Donohue, a director at DigiConnect. He spoke at OFE's open source policy summit in February this year. The commission challenges open source as a community of stakeholders to show them what open source can do for society and for Europe. And they are reaching out to you, to us, the open source community, to engage. They have already taken the first step. And really now it's time for us to level up. Yeah. And so where to start? Right now, there is the easiest way for you to engage, I would say, in the policy conversation is to take part in this European Commission's study on the impact of open source software and hardware. It's actually being carried out by Openform Europe together with Fraunhofer. This study is meant to guide open source policy for the next 10 years. I believe it will go beyond policy statements and strategy documents and will impact funding investments and procurements. So it's really important. We are conducting a big survey as part of this study of open source companies, projects and organizations with the aim of, you know, to capture the real face of open source as it is today, within companies and both small one-person ventures and tech giants, we want to hear from all of you. So go to our website or the Commission's website and you'll find the links. Where to start if you run an open source business? There are many ways that you can get involved and engaged as a stakeholder. Just this week, European Open Source Business Association is formally launching in Brussels. It's called APEL, Association Professionale Europienne de Logiciel Libre. It aims to be the voice of open source businesses vis-à-vis the European institutions. I think it's a milestone really for open source to be represented as a stakeholder in Brussels. So are you a supporting member of a National Business Association for open source? Are you encouraging them to engage at the European level? Remember what I mentioned about the standards and patents communication a few years back? There was no open source company that had spoken to the European Commission and that's how you get inadvertently affected by policy. Today, I think the situation has improved somewhat but the level of resources of the European Open Source Business Associations are nowhere near where they should be when taking their real world importance into account. Other industries put way more effort into European representation. And you can tell yourself that you won, it's the government's responsibility to understand the importance of open source and just sit back and wait for them to call us for our opinion, but you can also take responsibility for the situation and start the conversation. Build that bridge. Remember open source, the community that you're all part of has the capacity, I think, to help solve some of Europe's large strategic challenges. And it's not only open source, this is not unique to open source. It usually takes a crisis or an immediate threat for smaller industries to react to political risks or opportunities. The big ones are at the table already, the establishment is there. But open source is not small anymore. It can sometimes look small in the eyes of the policymakers or look niche. We have to step up and improve the communication, educate policymakers. And that's why I'm now turning to you here at the Open Source Summit Europe. Join us in our conversation with policymakers. Don't wait for an existential threat. Show policymakers how openness can solve their problems. Thank you and stay in touch.