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European PoliciesOpen Source SoftwareDigital innovation
Last update: 29/01/2024
New partnerships for the french OSPO
The OSPO of the French government’s Interministerial Digital Directorate, DINUM, has announced a partnership with “DesCodeuses”. This continues DINUM’s approach to working with the open source community through formal partnerships. In particular, this partnership is expected to be a first step for longer-term collaboration between DINUM and DesCodeuses (Women Who Code) to facilitate participation of women in software development projects.Bastien Guerry from DINUM’s Free Software Mission, when asked about how this helped their work towards external actors, commented:“The creation of the Free…
Digital-ready policymakingeInclusion+3 topics
Last update: 29/11/2023
Building and designing cooperative digital infrastructure with OS
A new report co-authored by researchers from the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), OSPO++ and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) highlights the benefits that open source can bring to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report is based on the outcomes of the “OSPOs for Good: Building & Designing Cooperative Digital Infrastructure” conference co-organised by OpenForum Europe, RISE, OSPO++, JHU, the UN Office of Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology and the UN Office of Information and Communications Technology.Both the conference and the report highlighted that…
Aleph Alpha's OS LLM might be the answer to US AI dominance
Aleph Alpha, a Heidelberg-based startup focused on open source large language models (LLM), has raised €486 million in its Series B financing round. Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck called the startup an “incredible success story.” Indeed, this was one of Europe’s largest AI rounds ever – Mistral AI, the French startup which also relies on open source for its model made a splash this June when it raised €105 million in its seed funding round. Aleph Alpha’s funding round was led by Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (Ipai), Bosch Ventures and companies operating under the…
Business and competitionTools+3 topics
Last update: 20/10/2023
New report discusses OS supply chain challenges, opportunities
Last week, Sonatype presented their annual Report on the State of the Software Supply Chain which looked at the patterns of open source (OS) maintenance, adoption and consumption. Specifically, it investigated the growth of the software supply chain, the use of software bill of materials (SBOM), the rise of OS regulations, as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) by developers. The possibility to do this type of third-party scrutiny on the source code and supply chain is one of the key societal benefits of open source. Any issues discovered could also exist…
Business and competitionDigital-ready policymaking+4 topics
Last update: 02/10/2023
New, free online course in open source licences from the EU
Interoperable Europe Academy released a new, free online course entitled “Introduction to open software licences,” which covers the basics of open source licensing. The class targets IT professionals, policymakers and public servants working in the field of digitalisation and integration of public services who wish to better understand and apply OS licences in their ICT products and solutions. The lesson offers an interactive learning environment and should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Overall, the course covers core topics, focusing on types and characteristics of different OS…
CollaborationEuropean Policies+7 topics
Last update: 06/04/2023
Supporting quality and maturity of digital commons
NGI Zero Review is a three year support programme offering various targeted services to free and open source projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative. Goal is to improve the quality and inclusiveness of these projects, and make them more sustainable where possible by supporting the most promising ideas to live up to high standards (sometimes called “walk the talk”) in terms of security, privacy, accessibility, open source licensing compliance, standardisation, etc. Target participants: The NGI Zero Review program is open to grantees withing the NGI initiative Available to free…
eGovernmentICT+6 topics
Last update: 06/04/2023
Funding opportunity: Open Calls on moving the Internet forward
NGI Zero Core 1st Open Call Opening date: 1st April 2023 Closing date: 1st August 12:00 CET We want a more resilient, trustworthy and open internet. We want to empower end-users. Given the speed at which the ‘twin transition’ is taking place, we need a greener internet and more sustainable services sooner rather than later. Neither will happen at global scale without protocol evolution, which — as the case of three decades of IPv6 introduction demonstrates — is extremely challenging. NGI0 Core is designed to push beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and…
eGovernmentICT+3 topics
Last update: 29/05/2023
Funding opportunity: Open Calls on Trustworthiness and data sovere
NGI ZERO ENTRUST 5th Open Call Opening date: 1st April Closing date: 1st August 12:00 CET (noon) We need a more resilient, trustworthy and open internet, empowering the end-users. Trust is only justified and sustainable if it the technology in question is up for the job, and is secure-by-design as well as trustworthy. Much of the software, services and devices does not measure up, and it is quite unlikely this will just improve by itself. NGI0 Entrust is designed to move beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and…
eGovernmentICTDigital innovation
Last update: 30/05/2022
Keeping in touch in Ukraine
Diverse Ukrainian organisations are transforming themselves to support their members as they navigate the difficult situation during the war. Support provided from companies, governmental organisations, NGOs and other actors range from providing information, evacuating colleagues and employees and their families, to financial, logistical and psychological help. One of the ways for organisations to keep track and communicate with their employees is the Together App, an open source solution created to help organisations to communicate and ensure the physical safety of their members in a simple…
Human resourcesOpen Source SoftwareDemography and population
Last update: 09/02/2024
Where are women in open source?
Study after study has shown that women are underrepresented in virtually all sectors of ICT. According to PwC’s Women in Tech report, women comprise only a quarter of the worforce in the tech industry. Open source communities are even more male-dominated, with women accounting for no more than 10% of contributors and participants.Surveys and research consistently indicate that the proportion of women involved in open source is significantly lower than that of men. For instance, in the most recent Linux Foundation survey, fewer than 7% of respondents were women. Similarly, an unpublished study…
Science and technologyEmployment+2 topics
Last update: 11/03/2021
European Public Sector OSS Workshop Organised by Swedish NOSAD
Knowledge-sharing and collaboration is in the essence of the open source culture. In Sweden, public entities have adopted this mindset in order to improve in the way they use and collaborate on open source software and data. In the newly formed Network Open Source and Data (NOSAD), public entities gather to share best practices and lessons learned through monthly workshops, but also collaborate on community initiatives such as a catalog of open source software used within the public services. Recently, the network organised a workshop on the topic of how other EU-countries are working to…