As fast as it came, it was gone – or so goes the German idiom. The APELL Conference 2025 was a full day of presentations from distinguished speakers, workshops with our equally distinguished guests, and networking in the Polish capital, Warsaw!

On the occasion of the Polish EU Council Presidency, APELL invited leaders from the Open Source industry, developers and interested businesses to the Polish capital. At the beginning of the day, as is tradition, the APELL General Assembly was held and, among other things, formally accepted the accession of the Dutch and Danish Open Source business associations, DOSBA and DOSL as a full voting members.

The public part of the conference was opened by APELL's Co-President, Cédric Ulmer, and moderated by Sebastian Raible, APELL's Director for EU Government affairs.

Cédric Ulmer welcomed the participants and outlined the successes and challenges that APELL has navigated since its last APELL Conference 2024 in Berlin.

Holger Pfister, General Manager DACH for the conference's platinum sponsor, SUSE, presented SUSE's perspective as global OpenSource Enterprise on Digital Sovereignty. Presenting SUSE's claim "Open by design, sovereign by choice", Holger laid out how Open Source contributes to reducing dependencies and suggested a label for Digital Sovereignty – linked to the committment of the European Public Sector to only buying Open Source products with the label in the future! [Download Holger's slide deck as PDF.]

Ludovic Dubost, Founder and CEO, XWiki SAS, presented XWiki’s Paying Apps Model as an example for a strategy to create a sustainable business model based on Open Source. Without having discussed this beforehand with Holger, Ludovic also made the case for an Open Source label – proposing that Open Source businesses need more recognition for their efforts in creating a more sovereign digital market in Europe!

Leonhard Kugler, head of open-source platform - openCode, Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität (ZenDiS), presented OpenCode and explained why Germany's strategy across multiple governments is to increase Digital Sovereignty. In empowering public administrations to emerge from critical dependencies, the government-owned company ZenDiS makes use of Open Source to Build Sovereign Software for the Public Sector. [Download Leonhard's slides as PDF.]

Elzbieta Godlewska, Business Development Executive, Linux Professional Institute (LPI), presented the LPI's recent second Open Source Professionals Job Survey and its outcomes: what is important to open source professionals. [Download Elzbieta's slides as PDF.]

Jean-Luc Dorel, Programme Officer, European Commission, discussed how the European Commission plans to transition from the Next Generation Internet programme to The Open Internet Stack, building on 7 years of funding Open Source. The Commission's agenda is to support sovereignty by way of supporting Open Source, reducing the reliance on "global proprietary platforms". [Download Jean-Luc's slides as PDF.]

Michał Domański, Chief of Staff at Omniviser, Founder of Bielik Consulting, Bielik.AI Ambassador, presented how a Community has driven the creation of the Polish LLM BIELIK, and encouraged more collaboration and good will cooperation to innovate and create together. [Download Michał's slides as PDF.]

Paula Grzegorzewska, Strategic Partnerships Senior Manager, Linux Foundation Europe, presented her ongoing study of the Polish Open Source ecosystem, encouraged embracing collaboration and more self-organisation of Open Source developers and business owners in Poland. She also shared her thoughts on the recent Polish Government Digitalisation Strategy. [Download Paula's slides as PDF.]

Astor Nummelin Carlberg, Executive Director, OpenForum Europe, shared his experiences in advocating for open source businesses in the EU and had a call to action for the present Open Source business leaders, as the opportunity of a life-time presents itself to Open Source businesses in the current climate where interests of politics and Open Source businesses align like never before.

Participants split up into four working groups to discuss various current issues and concrete topics important for the Open Source business ecosystem.
Workshop one discussed how the Open Source industry in Europe can be strengthened and grown. The current fear of tariffs and a deterioration in international trade relations provide an opportunity to connect with decision makers, and additional events like the end of life of Windows 10 create additional openness in governments and public authorities to consider alternatives. Public spending will need to be justified when digital sovereignty is not considered. Free Software provides a superior value proposition as it stands for the freedom of choice. While price is often an important factor in public procurement, participants argued that Open Source solutions should actually be more expensive, as they provide the product, together with its source code and the openness offered by way of the attached licences. Furthermore, creating an Openness label could contribute to the work of APELL in creating more awareness for the advantages Open Source products and services deliver.

Workshop two considered what the best national structure for Open Source business representation is and whether it should be designed top down or bottom up. The purpose of national Open Source business representations is to organise and provide a contact point for governments and public authorities, as well as to provide input during legislation. Having a strong national player specifically to represent the interests of Open Source businesses allows interaction with the government and authorities. Polish participants identified, among other things, a scepticism towards Open Source products, while support for proprietary and incumbent solutions was still prevalent in Polish administration. Public procurement law and procedures should be improved and fairness in public tenders increased. The European and international discussion surrounding technological sovereignty was identified as an opportunity also in Poland. APELL will remain in touch with Open Source businesses and entrepreneurs and continue to support the creation of a Polish Open Source business representation!

Workshop three explored how sustainable funding from the EU can be achieved, and identified that projects should have a clear strategy for funding, as a history of having received e.g. NGI funding also increases interest from public procurement in the future. Looking at current examples of public support for Open Source like OpenDesk in Germany and La Suite in France, participants were cautious regarding the recreation of development within public authorities, and preferred relying on experienced Open Source companies. Positive examples should also be copied by other European Member States. Participants familiar with participating in public procurement efforts highlighted that, while an initial high investment was required, it could pay off for extended periods.

Workshop four looked into the question how substantial revenue can be generated from an Open Source business. On the one hand, participants listed examples that turned out bad for them, such as inflexibility with pricing made public as fixed prices set expectations, going after unfamiliar tenders, overselling features, and over-reliance on single individuals for sales. On the other hand, good experiences were made with offering roadmap sponsorship as part of the product, differentiated pricing for services with subscriptions, joining Open Source business associations and building partnerships, simplifying and improving the user experience, thereby improving the product, as well as growing sales and marketing. A European buyers-side association was invoked as an idea.