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

Wed Jan 21 04:31:48 PST 2026

Hi all,

Thanks for your interest. I have shared with the interested parties a
document for the draft response. Feel free to share further and add your
comments/ideas.

Kind regards
Saber

On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 at 13:19, Marco Bernasocchi via QGIS-PSC <
qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> QGIS-PSC mailing list
>>> QGIS-PSC at lists.osgeo.org
>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> --
>> Andreas Neumann
>> QGIS.ORG board member (treasurer)
>>
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>>
>>
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-- 

Saber Razmjooei

CO-Founder

lutraconsulting.co.uk

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