Current political challenges and opportunities for Open Source in Europe
Channel: British Computer Society Open Source Specialists
Date: 2020-04-15

Presented by Astor Nummelin Carlberg

The campaign to save Open Source development from the EU’s Copyright Directive was indicative of the current status of Open Source advocacy in the EU—while ultimately successful, it was more reactive than proactive. The most important lesson from this campaign was that Open Source was not targeted by policy makers, simply forgotten and misunderstood. This suggests that while Open Source has gone mainstream, Open Source advocacy has not kept up.

As there are both more opportunities and regulatory risks for Open Source in the European Union, more, if not all, Open Source community stakeholders need to increase their capacity to deal with policy making. At the least, we need to make sure that Open Source never again becomes an unintended regulatory casualty. There are several very tangible steps that can be taken to do this. Since Open Source is becoming ubiquitous at the same time as there is an eagerness to regulate tech in the EU, the time is now to mature Open Source advocacy and increase its effectiveness.

Astor Nummelin Carlberg is OpenForum Europe’s Policy Director, responsible for policy development and advocacy. Before joining the team he was an Accredited Parliamentary Assistant in the European Parliament, and has studied in the United States and Germany. He has extensive experience of European policy making processes, communications and catalysing networks and communities for advocacy impact.