As European companies and public sector organisations seek to strengthen their strategic autonomy and control over digital systems, open-source technologies are gaining renewed attention as sovereign and interoperable alternatives.
We attended The Open-Source Conference Luxembourg 2026 on behalf of Sopra Steria as part of our work on Simpl, an open-source, smart and secure middleware that promotes data access and interoperability among European data initiatives
Across the sessions, three key themes emerged: open source as strategic infrastructure, interoperability and federation as a European approach, and communities and governance as essential enablers.
Building Strategic Digital Infrastructure Through Open-Source Commons
Luc Dockendorf, Luxembourg’s Ambassador for Cybersecurity and Digitalisation, emphasised the importance of autonomy for the public sector and public administrations, highlighting the critical role of open source in enabling governments to build on shared public infrastructure rather than relying on commercial platforms.
Moving to concrete infrastructure, Matthias Kuom, from the German Aerospace Center, explained that cloud-to-edge continuum in Europe is being shaped through open-source initiatives such as NeoNephos and Sylva, contributing to this vision of a sovereign and interoperable European cloud infrastructure. Simpl itself was among the mentioned connectivity technologies contributing to these initiatives.
Beyond infrastructure, Kevin Muller argued that as AI makes code easier to reproduce, competitive advantage increasingly depends on trust rather than proprietary code. For a cybersecurity provider, this trust is built through a proven track record, independent audits and certifications and a community that reviews code, reports issues and publicly supports the product. His central message was that code can be copied, but a trusted community and long-established reputation cannot be easily replicated.
Interoperability and Federation Are Emerging as the European Model
Turning to collaboration between public administrations, Patrick Jacobs and Robert Riemann presented EU OS as both a Linux-based desktop proof of concept and a community and knowledge base for public administrations. Many municipalities face the same barriers to adoption: limited technical expertise, software compatibility, migration costs and resistance to change. Sharing approaches and expertise can help them avoid tackling these problems in isolation.
Interoperability was central with Massimiliano Merelli presenting the UN Digital ID initiative aiming to provide a unique digital identity for UN staff across multiple organisations. The project is based on open standards and interoperability mechanisms, allowing them to preserve their autonomy while participating in a shared digital identity ecosystem.
This emphasis on interoperability was echoed by Gina Plat on the topic of decentralised and federated technologies. Drawing on examples such as Matrix, Mastodon, PeerTube, Forgejo and ForgeFed, she argued that the future digital ecosystem will depend increasingly on interoperable open-source services connected through shared protocols rather than centralised platforms.
At the infrastructure level, the same principle also underpins the European cloud initiatives presented by Matthias Kuom. Federation was repeatedly presented to combine cooperation and sovereignty, allowing organisations to collaborate while retaining control over their own infrastructure and data.
Such message support Simpl which is not merely a technical architecture, but an approach to digital sovereignty, leveraging open-source technologies and open standards to support interoperability and federation across Europe's evolving digital ecosystem.
Community and Governance are the Real Enablers
Beyond technical interoperability, the conference also highlighted the role of contributors and governance. Bastien Guerry presented the State of Public Code initiative, part of the Public Code Observatory, which uses Software Heritage archive data to measure public-sector participation in open source.
One finding was that cross-border collaboration already occurs between governments without formal agreements. The initiative’s open data and reproducible methodology make these contributions visible and help stakeholders understand existing networks.
The discussion and challenges appeared to be shared ones across the world as emphasized by Luc Dockendorf, Rina Ahmed, Zeynep Varoglu and Evans Ikua discussing their experiences with open source as enabler for digital sovereignty. Despite very different contexts, the speakers identified similar challenges: developing skills, building communities, creating governance frameworks and supporting knowledge sharing.
Linked to community organisation matters, Boris Baldassari introduced the work of the OSPO Alliance and the Good Governance Initiative (GGI), highlighting the growing importance of Open-Source Programme Offices (OSPOs) in helping organisations manage open source strategically, from licensing and compliance to community engagement and contribution.
A concrete example of successful community building was provided by Sarra Hedhli, describing how the French Ministry of Education is transforming a software platform into a broader ecosystem for teachers. Through initiatives such as the Forgejo and Agora, the objective is not only to develop tools but to cultivate sustainable communities around educational digital commons. Her key message was that open-source projects do not all automatically sustainable common. Long-term success requires governance, active contributors, dedicated resources and community engagement.
What it means for Sopra Steria and Simpl
Attending the Open-Source Conference Luxembourg 2026 was a valuable opportunity for Sopra Steria and the Simpl project to explore emerging practices, technologies and exchange perspectives with organisations across the European open-source ecosystem.
One key takeaway emerged across the sessions: the long-term value of open source lies not only in the technologies themselves, but also in the communities, governance structures and collaborative practices that sustain them. Open standards and federated architectures provide the technical foundations for interoperability and digital sovereignty, while active contributions and knowledge sharing help turn these foundations into sustainable solutions.