This event will take place in-person in Madrid at the Hotel Eurostars Madrid Tower (Paseo de la Castellana 259 B, Madrid, 28046, Spain), and will be followed by social drinks.

On 16 November 2023, OpenForum Europe, Red Hat, TODO Group and Bitergia will host an event in Madrid, Spain. As part of the Capital series targeting the Member State that holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU (Spain, at the moment), this event seeks to bridge the gap between the EU inner workings and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities active all over Europe.

In today’s digital landscape, FOSS 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 FOSS ecosystem. This legislative proposal, currently in negotiation between the European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, could considerably harm the FOSS ecosystem and innovation in Europe.

In a nutshell, the CRA creates obligations when software is “made available”, and this puts extra burden on FOSS as it is a software being constantly made available at every stage of development and supply. FOSS 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 will bring EU and national policymakers together with businesses and organisations from the FOSS ecosystem to shed light on the intersection between the CRA and FOSS by providing a platform for critical discussions, insights, and solutions. The event will feature a high-level keynote, a presentation on how a good or a bad CRA could impact FOSS in the EU, and two panel discussions with Q&A sessions. The panels will include prominent figures from the FOSS community and cybersecurity domain.

The first panel will examine current EU policy concerns on how to safeguard FOSS and the benefits it brings in terms of innovation, strategic autonomy, EU competitiveness and security. The second panel, held in Spanish, will focus 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?

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