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

Wed Jan 21 04:19:34 PST 2026

Hi All,
I've also started reading this in detail an preparing some notes.
@Régis Haubourg <regis at qgis.org> you had a collaborative MD hedgehog
somewhere?

I could dump my toughts there.

Cheers

Marco Bernasocchi

QGIS.org Chair
OSGEO.org VP Europe
OPENGIS.ch CEO
http://berna.io

On Wed, 21 Jan 2026, 12:10 Régis Haubourg via QGIS-PSC, <
qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> 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
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
> --
>
> --
> Andreas Neumann
> QGIS.ORG board member (treasurer)
>
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