Together with representatives from member companies, and partner organisations, APELL had the opportunity to join the kick-off of the Digital Commons EDIC on Friday 19 June in Paris, and represent the European Open Source Business sector.
The DC-EDIC is a joint effort of France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, more countries have joined as observers with ambitions to become members.
APELL welcomes the stated objective of contributing to open source software, open standards, and shared digital infrastructure, and in particular supports the goal of reducing technological dependency. It needs to be underlined however, that an increase in capacity and capability in Europe is only possible when Open Source businesses can compete fairly, in public procurement and in joint projects of the Member States like La Suite Numérique, MijnBureau, and OpenDesk.
Before the background of the recently published ambitions in the Strategy for Tech Sovereignty, APELL and its member organisations call on the EDIC members and the European Commission to be very ambitious and to make the best of the possibilities that the DC-EDIC affords.
Digital sovereignty is achievable if the EU, Member States, and public authorities pull together in the direction of a fairer, open digital sector. If used well, it has great potential to not only dissolve technological dependencies, but increase economic power and innovation in the digital sector, and for the European industry.
We wish the EDIC success and hope that it realises the potential that cooperation with commercial Open Source developers and service providers has.
The Open Source business ecosystem stands at the ready!
