Swedish OSPO network workshop on Open Source Policy

The Swedish OSPO network recently had its 8th workshop, this time hosted by Husqvarna Group, where we explored how EU policy is impacting and needs consideration in our use and collaboration of open source software. Many insights from a phenomenal line-up of speakers and participants. Some points raised:

• European industry, including traditional sectors, faces competitiveness challenges, with IT as a core input cost. Prices rise without proportional quality increases when dependencies are uncontrolled.
• Beyond cost, abrupt service outages are critical—not for companies alone, but for the jurisdictions in which they operate.
• There is a growing concern over dependence on a small set of vendors from less reliable jurisdictions.
• OSPOs are becoming more common across government and industry, accelerating adoption of open source as a digital sovereignty tool.
• Sovereignty is central to the EU’s purpose, raising the question how independent are we in a connected world?
• Sovereignty sits above most policy topics and ties directly to the viability of nation‑state functions.
• Sovereignty applies to states, not products—what matters is whether using a product allows a nation to retain sovereignty.
• Digital systems (energy, food, water) are critical infrastructure; dependencies constrain political choices, resilience, and crisis response.
• Risk analysis is essential.
• Digital policy was long fragmented or absent; procurement choices were largely unregulated.
• Dependencies have accumulated gradually and largely unnoticed.
• Civil society raised concerns for years, often ignored. Communication challenges and messenger credibility may have contributed.
• Assumptions of geopolitical stability encouraged reliance on trusted vendors, based on cost efficiency and trade‑offs (e.g., foreign intelligence access vs. security guarantees).
• A decade ago, only one digital file per year would be produced at EU level; now many interconnected regulations are developed annually.
• Software‑related industrial policy is emerging. Established industrial‑policy playbooks exist for the physical economy, but not for software.
• Open source is expected to play a central role in future industrial policy where emphasis on supply and demand is critical with several key initiatives in the works:
• Open Internet stack, a supply-side-funding programme looking to take a structured approach to funding of digital commons, addressing limitations reported on the current 800 M Euro that has gone into grassroots projects.
• EU Open Digital Ecosystem strategy, or Open Source Strategy in clear terms, as evolved from DIGIT internal, EC internal, to now focus on EU, signalling the link between tech sovereignty and open source capacity, supporting the growth of European solutions ta scale.
• Cloud and AI Development Act, aiming to ensure there is a supply of sustainable computing capacity in Europe - Use public sector demand to stimulate European software capacity