Open Source Driving the European Digital Decade

Read the event report

On 16 November 2023, OpenForum Europe, Red Hat, Linux Foundation Europe, TODO Group and Bitergia hosted an event in Madrid, Spain. As part of the Capital series taking place in the Member State that holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU (Spain, at the moment), this event sought to bridge the gap between the EU inner workings and the Open Source Software (OSS) communities active all over Europe.

In today’s digital landscape, OSS plays a pivotal role, underpinning a significant portion of our software-driven world. However, concerns have emerged regarding the potential impact of the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) on the OSS ecosystem. This legislative proposal, currently in negotiation between the European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, could considerably harm the OSS ecosystem and innovation in Europe.

In a nutshell, the CRA creates obligations when software is “made available”, and this puts extra burden on OSS as it is a software being constantly made available at every stage of development and supply. OSS licences and development models give Europe’s companies and governments full access to audit, modify and commercialise the software, thus forming Europe’s best opportunity for digital sovereignty and cybersecurity. At the same time, the open source innovation model is the way Europe can create competitive solutions at scale, fast. This has been shown by the rapid innovation in open source AI, most recently, but is relevant across all industrial and economic verticals.

In Madrid, we brought EU and national policymakers together with businesses and organisations from the OSS ecosystem to shed light on the intersection between the CRA and OSS by providing a platform for critical discussions, insights, and solutions. The event featured two high-level keynotes, a presentation on how a good or a bad CRA could impact OSS in the EU, and two panel discussions (one on the CRA and one on OSS in Spain) with Q&A sessions. The panels included prominent figures from the OSS community and cybersecurity domain.

The first panel examined current EU policy concerns on how to safeguard OSS and the benefits it brings in terms of innovation, strategic autonomy, EU competitiveness and security. The second panel, held in Spanish, focused on gathering many of the local initiatives active in Spain, showing their similarities and differences, as well as discussing how to enable vibrant open source communities in a dynamic private and third sector landscape. How would these actors like to see their cooperation in the future? What are the shared goals?

Read the event report

Welcome address from OpenForum Europe & Presentation of the Cyber Resilience Act

Ciarán O’Riordan – Senior Policy Advisor, OpenForum Europe

Keynote 1 – The state of play of the Cyber Resilience Act

Javier Augusto Gil-Ruiz Gil-Esparza – Advisory Member for Cybersecurity, Secretariat of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain

Panel 1 – The Cyber Resilience Act: Policy concerns and the role of the FOSS community

Panel, moderated by Daniel Izquierdo (Bitergia):

James Lovegrove – Red Hat
Mirko Boehm – Linux Foundation Europe
Beatriz Benítez-Alahija – Across Legal
Enzo Ribagnac – Eclipse Foundation

Keynote 2 (English & Spanish) – Innovation and Open Source in Spain

Juan Lobato Gandarias – Secretary General, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) of the Community of Madrid

Panel 2 (Spanish) – Open Source Communities and Enablement in Spain

Panel, moderated by Ana Jimenez (Linux Foundation):

Juan Luis Cano – QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey
Julia Bernal – Red Hat
Tomas Olivares – Andes Digital
Clara Pezuela – FIWARE Foundation
Jesús María González Barahona – Rey Juan Carlos University

Agenda

14:30 – 15:00
Welcome coffee
15:00 – 15:05
Welcome address from OpenForum Europe
Ciarán O’Riordan – Senior Policy Advisor, OpenForum Europe
15:05 – 15:20
Presentation of the Cyber Resilience Act
Ciarán O’Riordan – Senior Policy Advisor, OpenForum Europe
15:20 – 15:35
Keynote 1 (English) – The state of play of the Cyber Resilience Act
Javier Augusto Gil-Ruiz Gil-Esparza – Advisory Member for Cybersecurity, Secretariat of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain
15:35 – 15:45
Keynote 1 – Q&A session
15:45 – 16:45
Panel 1 (English) – The Cyber Resilience Act: Policy concerns and the role of the FOSS community
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), in 2023, is at the centre of all open source policy discussions. These security procedures could discourage the development and distribution of open source. Not only would this harm the strategic autonomy of the EU’s citizens, companies and governments, but harming open source could also cause the CRA to backfire because less open source means fewer possibilities to perform security audits and fewer possibilities to work on the security of software we use. This panel focused on how to safeguard OSS and the benefits it brings in terms of innovation, strategic autonomy, EU competitiveness and security.
Panel, moderated by Daniel Izquierdo (Bitergia):
- James Lovegrove – Red Hat
- Mirko Boehm – Linux Foundation Europe
- Beatriz Benítez-Alahija – Across Legal
- Enzo Ribagnac – Eclipse Foundation
16:45 – 17:00
Panel 1 – Q&A session
17:00 – 17:10
Keynote 2 (Spanish) – Innovation and Open Source in Spain
Juan Lobato Gandarias – Secretary General, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) of the Community of Madrid
17:10 – 18:10
Panel 2 (Spanish) – Open Source Communities and Enablement in Spain
The second panel, held in Spanish, focused on gathering many of the local OSS initiatives active in Spain, showing their similarities and differences, as well as discussing how to enable vibrant open source communities in a dynamic private and third sector landscape. How would these actors like to see their cooperation in the future? What are the shared goals?
Panel, moderated by Ana Jimenez (Linux Foundation):
- Juan Luis Cano – QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey
- Julia Bernal – Red Hat
- Tomas Olivares – Andes Digital
- Clara Pezuela – FIWARE Foundation
- Jesús María González Barahona – Rey Juan Carlos University
18:10 – 18:20
Panel 2 – Q&A session
18:20 – 18:30
Closing address
Julia Bernal – Country Manager – Spain and Portugal, Red Hat
18:30 – 20:00
Social drinks

Keynote Speakers

Javier Augusto Gil-Ruiz Gil-Esparza Advisory Member for Cybersecurity, Secretariat of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain

Javier Augusto Gil-Ruiz Gil-Esparza is an expert in cybersecurity and digital technology with extensive experience in the world of public administration. He graduated as a telecommunications engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and has since built a distinguished career in various government institutions and leading technology organisations.
Currently, he serves as an Advisory Member in the Secretariat of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain. In his role, he is responsible for overseeing the cybersecurity of digital service providers, as well as planning and coordinating cybersecurity policies. His expertise extends to regulatory development at both the Spanish and European levels, and he is an active member in European and international forums, contributing to the design of key strategies in this field.
Before his current position, he held managerial and technological roles in other Spanish public administrations, in international organizations such as the NC3A (NATO), and in the private sector.

Juan Lobato Gandarias Secretary General Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party of the Community of Madrid (PSOE-M)

Juan Lobato Gandarias is a Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) politician. First elected as a councillor in Soto del Real in 2003, he was the town’s mayor from 2015 to 2021. He served in the Assembly of Madrid from 2015 to 2019 and again from 2021, becoming his party’s leader in the region. He serves now as Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party of the Community of Madrid (PSOE-M).