[Qgis-psc] Call for evidence - impact of open source

Wed Jan 21 03:10:30 PST 2026

Hi,
I agree too that we need to raise our voices. I had a deep look, and 
fitting into European formalism is not that easy, but worth the try.
I also think that we should debate what could be pragmatically improved 
with european public policies regarding our project.

 From my corner, having been on the side of public funder, contributor 
in a company, and now benevolent in a research institute that uses QGIS, 
I see these bottlenecks :

- The IT culture around open source is very low, and many IT 
departement, or even public market try to fit open source business into 
the mold of closed source habits. Europe could improve things by a 
directive that forces countries to change their public market rules to 
allow open source service buying for any contract. This would secure a 
lot of contracts. And allow those contracts to be more agile, because 
open source moves fast.

- The cyber stuff pushes us back into a vendor pattern, where we are a 
lot more responsible of our distribution packages than the GPL licence 
for our own code says. This increases infra and administrative tasks a 
lot, and only big projects can follow the flow and our obligation.   The 
CRA open source stewardship stuff releases the legal pressure, but 
customers will still treat open source as vendors and will expect the 
same level of reactivity over disclosures. That means we need to secure 
our package process, anticipate scanner issues, have a proactive 
security strategy. That means more QGIS.org funded work in the long run. 
What can Europe do? Find ways to secure the funding of open source 
stewards, but how? Communication and budget helpers can help, but it is 
already done currently. If we are in a new IT cold war, I would be in 
favor of a tax on numeric giants that would be funding open source 
foundations.  The real political question would then be the way this 
money can be redistributed ( I'd rather let the economy find its way and 
not depend too much on polical choices, but I'm afraid that doesn't work 
fast enough) .

- Github centralization fears me too. Funding codeberg sufficiently so 
that they are strong enough to allow project have decent CI minutes, on 
par features, so that open source project can grow without paying the 
AI/closed system toll in Europe would also be necessary. An open source 
tool, with one majors strong public funded instance.

-  Renewing the motivation to contribute to open source in schools. I 
think modern centralized IT platform, and AI move contributors away from 
the project. I can only see a public educational program to mitigate 
this. Open source basics, contribution basics should be pushed in 
educational programs (in France, a team is doing a great job currently 
with a long term strategy based on open source and commons : 
https://www.education.gouv.fr/feuilles-de-route-450426 ) . To me Europe 
should also launch a funded program alike the Google Summer of Code, 
publicly funded.

- Finally, Europe should push rules to forbid IT tools that block real 
interoperability and lock users in companies in closed ecosystem. We 
have shy initiatives around RGPD data portability. Europe should go 
further and set up a "vendor locking" score, added to all the IT audits 
I see.

@Saber if you take the lead to write something, maybe we could share a 
collaborative pad to gather our notes and ideas?

Best regards
Régis

On 1/21/26 08:49, Andreas Neumann via QGIS-PSC wrote:
> Yes - I agree it is important.
>
> It is pretty obvious for us (and the European governments), that the 
> US government (with a lot of influence on the US economy) is not 
> anymore a reliable partner. So I believe Open Source and other 
> European software alternatives to US commercial software where Europe 
> is dependent on is probably of quite some importance.
>
> PSC will try to submit something before the deadline.
>
> Andreas
>
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 at 05:20, Valentin Buira via QGIS-PSC 
> <qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>     Hi Saber
>
>     Thanks a lot for bringing the topic, I submitted my feedback as an
>     individual.
>
>     Now I strongly suggest the PSC to do so as well for QGIS. Because
>     from the way the call for evidence is worded, it is very obvious
>     (and explicit even) that it's preliminary work for a new a new law
>     on open source.
>
>     QGIS has this unique ability to trickle down on so many
>     disciplines, and in the end on the life of people
>
>     *If the EU is putting open source software on its strategic road
>     map*, this could mean securing new funding for QGIS. And it would
>     benefit to the QGIS project worldwide.
>
>     And it could also help to deter side effects of this future
>     regulation. What I mean by that, it would be cool to avoid the
>     same burden as the Cyber Resilience Act(CRA)
>
>     P.S: The deadline for submitting a feedback is on 3 February, so
>     it's getting closer. [1]
>
>     P.P.S: I also recently suggested the creation of a Europe QGIS
>     user group with potential perks for the EU [2]
>
>     Cheers,
>     Valentin
>
>     [1]
>     https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16213-European-Open-Digital-Ecosystems_en
>     [2]
>     https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-user/2026-January/055990.html
>     _______________________________________________
>     QGIS-PSC mailing list
>     QGIS-PSC at lists.osgeo.org
>     https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> --
> Andreas Neumann
> QGIS.ORG <http://QGIS.ORG> board member (treasurer)
>
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