There can be no discourse on Europe’s digital future without open source - How the European Open Source Academy Magazine elevates the overshadowed contributors.
There is a number that keeps appearing in European policy documents, research reports, and Commission consultations regarding Europe’ digital path: between 70 and 90 percent. That is the estimated share of all software code in the digital economy that relies on open source components. Open- source is the linchpin of our public administrations, how our healthcare systems operate, how the trains and enterprises run across the continent.
And yet, as the European Commission acknowledged in its January 2026 call for evidence on open source digital ecosystems, much of the economic value generated by European open source communities flows outside the EU, and often benefiting the same large technology companies that European institutions are trying to reduce their dependence on.
The European Open Source Academy (EOSA) was created precisely to address that contradiction. By celebrating and recognizing the open source contributions to Europe’s digital landscape, through the flagship event of European Open Source Awards, policy recommendations, and skills and training in open source, the Academy Members are serving as the leading experts and champions of open source visibility and wider adoption.
And its first magazine, published in January 2026, is one of the clearest signals yet that the open source conversation in Europe is maturing, bringing together the thoughts of policy experts to testimonies from business experts.
For digital sovereignty, open source is the foundation
Before diving into what the magazine contains, it is worth pausing on why open source matters specifically to European digital sovereignty, and the answer may go beyond cost savings or technical flexibility.
Jutta Horstmann, Co-CEO of the Heinlein Group and a contributor to the Inaugural Issue, puts the problem in perspective. Even when data is stored in a GDPR-compliant, ISO-certified European data centre, it may still fall within the jurisdiction of US authorities. Through legislation such as the CLOUD Act, the Patriot Act, and FISA, American agencies can request access to data held by any company with a corporate link to the United States and do so often without the knowledge of the organisations in question.
"In hearings before the French Senate," Horstmann writes, "Microsoft confirmed that it cannot guarantee that European public sector data will remain beyond the reach of US authorities." Similar findings have emerged from government audits in the Netherlands and Denmark.
This is not a hypothetical. When the International Criminal Court prosecutor was temporarily locked out of his Microsoft Outlook account following US sanctions, it illustrated in stark terms what structural dependency actually looks like when geopolitics intervenes. Gaël Duval, founder of /e/OS and Murena, whose profile featured in Inaugural Isse, also uses that same episode to argue his central point: "True digital sovereignty begins with individuals regaining control over their data."
The European Commission has begun to respond. Its planned European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy, expected in the first half of 2026, is designed to move beyond the 2020–2023 open source strategy and align open source more tightly with digital sovereignty, industrial competitiveness, and geopolitical resilience. According to an EU-commissioned economic study, open source already contributes between €65 and €95 billion to the EU's GDP annually — and a modest 10% increase in contributions could add another €100 billion. Every euro invested in open source generates at least four euros in economic value across the continent.
The adoption of open source is not about aspirations, or ideologies but are a key strategic decision that has to be adopted across European Member states.
What the Magazine Actually Is
The first issue of the EOSA Magazine is structured around three questions that anyone working in European digital policy or technology procurement should be asking.
Can open source be the catalyst for Europe's digital sovereignty? This opening section gathers perspectives from practitioners across the ecosystem, ranging from Horstmann's analysis of the legal vulnerabilities created by US-law-governed software, to Gaël Lago of LINAGORA's examination of how even open source projects can reproduce dependency structures if governance is not handled carefully.
Gaël Blondelle, Chief Membership Officer at the Eclipse Foundation, contributes a piece on how open source foundations are multiplying their impact on implementation of the Cyber Resilience Act through the Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group. This is where policy and practice meet: the CRA is one of the most significant pieces of software regulation in European history, and open source communities are active part of the decision-making in how it gets implemented.
What experiences emerge from the open source community itself? The policy cannot be formed without the people behind open source. Stéfane Fermigier, founder and CEO of Abilian, traces the industrial maturation of France's open source ecosystem through the history of the CNLL, France's national open source industry group, offering a model for how a fragmented community of practitioners can develop into a coherent, politically relevant sector.
Benjamin Bellamy of LINAGORA contributes a piece that deserves particular attention: a deep dive into how podcasting - built on RSS, open standards, and the principle that anyone can publish without platform permission - preserved the original architecture of the open internet at a moment when social media was becoming a series of walled gardens. His argument shows the applicability of open source is pertinent to all of our technologies as well as creative outputs.
What lies beyond the software code? The third section widens the lens on what is considered open source. Julieta Arancio of the Open Science Hardware Foundation documents a decade of open science hardware embedding openness into Europe's research ecosystem. As well as the emerging technologies, Lea Gimpel of the Digital Public Goods Alliance examines how AI digital public goods can be integrated into the sovereignty agenda, a timely question as generative AI reshapes every layer of the technology stack. Moreover, Carina Tüllmann of the Open Logistics Foundation explores what open source governance looks like in industrial contexts where the communities are diverse, the stakes are high, and the code is just the beginning.
New call for contributions launched – we want to hear your story
For organisations navigating procurement decisions, infrastructure choices, or digital transformation programmes, the EOSA Magazine offers something that policy documents and analyst reports typically cannot: the practitioner's view of what works, what fails, and what the real obstacles are.
As the Lead of Communication & Dissemination activities, Trust IT has co-developed the editorial and led the creative process of bringing the Inaugural European Open Source Academy Magazine to life. The Magazine was envisioned as the platform for the informed, and community-grounded conversation, with the pages serving to increase visibility of some of the often overlooked projects, businesses and people behind open source code.
The contributions for the second issues of the EOSA Magazine are now open. Share with us your experiences about the most important conversations that should shape the digital discourse today.
Make your submission today Access EOSA Magazine Issue 1 here
