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Digital Sovereignty needs Free Software

In the last weeks, we got the green light to intervene against Apple before the European Court of Justice for the second time (!) while the European Commission has included the “Public Money? Public Code!” principle in its Technological Sovereignty Package. And stay tuned! A new European consortium will be launching soon, and we are part of it!

This month is starting with good news: the European Commission included the Free Software Foundation Europe’s “Public Money? Public Code!” principle in the newly released Technological Sovereignty Package, which also contains the new "Open Source Strategy". If implemented, it could mark a paradigm shift towards making publicly financed software available as Free Software. But it is too early to lean back: Its success will depend on binding rules, long-term funding, and meaningful civil society involvement.

However, not all public administrations think the same: England’s National Health Service (NHS England) has made most of its public source code repositories private by default, based on concerns that public code repositories could be scanned by AI systems to identify vulnerabilities. At the FSFE we were clear about it: NHS England should not hide public code behind closed doors. De-publishing does not make code unseen, nor does it remove existing copies, and it is not an effective security measure. Instead, it removes a fundamental pillar for security: the ability of independent experts, researchers, and other public bodies to inspect, reuse, and improve the code, and to report on security issues.

We called on the Free Software community to push that decision back by signing an open letter to NHS England, calling on them to keep their code open. The community’s response was strong, with more than 500 additional signatures in the hours after our call. Shortly afterwards, the UK Government Digital Service issued new guidance making clear that public bodies should keep code public by default.

Digital sovereignty through Free Software was also the topic of our latest Software Freedom Podcast episode, in which Bonnie and Johannes talk with Petteri from X-Road about the current challenges for Free Software projects in public administrations. Listen to it!

You may already know that despite the need for digital sovereignty in Europe, funding for European projects such as the Next Generation Internet Zero (NGI0) programme was cut. We're glad to share some good news on this front: we recently announced a new European consortium for a resilient, home-grown technology European ecosystem: the Restack project. Operating under Horizon Europe, the FSFE is a partner of this cascade funding programme, designed to retain the strength of the NGI Zero approach. Our role will be to provide legal and licensing support for potentially over 200 Free Software projects and assist their growth into part of a wider European digital commons.

Defending interoperability in Europe

“With industry interests well represented by several interveners on the other side, the FSFE is there to ensure that civil society is equally heard — and that the court can decide with the full picture before it"

Dr. Martin Husovec, the lawyer representing FSFE in the case T-359/25 - Apple against the European Commission

In a landmark development for Software Freedom in Europe, the Free Software Foundation Europe has been granted permission to intervene at the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case T-359/25 - Apple against the European Commission. This intervention aims to defend interoperability and Software Freedom in Europe and it is the second time the FSFE is intervening in a litigation at the CJEU in regards to the DMA and Apple. The previous case (T-1080/23) concerns Apple’s broader challenge to its DMA obligations and its designation as gatekeeper, while this case (T-359/25) focuses specifically on interoperability under Article 6(7) DMA and the legality of the European Commission’s decision specifying how Apple must implement those obligations in practice.

Following our work on the Digital Markets Act, we participated in the SCiDA Conference in Düsseldorf, a leading academic event focused on competition in digital markets. There, the FSFE was invited to present its work on interoperability in Android during a plenary session, highlighting the relevance of our work within ongoing policy and academic discussions.

The conference brought together senior representatives from competition authorities across Europe as well as members of the European Commission's DMA enforcement team. The conference provided an excellent opportunity to strengthen connections with key stakeholders and to further raise awareness of the FSFE's policy work on digital markets and users' freedom to control their devices.

Up for learning more about the DMA? We were invited for episode 5 of the "DMA Vox Populi" podcast about the DMA review. There, Dario discusses what the European Commission got right, where it fell short, and what must come next for software freedom and interoperability in Europe.

Youth Hacking 4 Freedom 2026

The 2026 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is reaching its peak. The programming period wraps up at the end of this month, and while participants can finally catch their breath, the jury will be getting to work evaluating their projects. In October, we will meet the 6 winners of this edition at the Award Ceremony weekend in Brussels.

For the fifth edition of YH4F we had over 80 participants from 21 countries! 😮 We can't wait to see what they have developed. And we are already planning for the next edition, so stay tuned!

From the stages: Ada, Digital Sovereignty, PIWO and more!

May has been a busy month! Our Polish local group took part in P.I.W.O. (the Poznań Free Software Event), where volunteers ran a booth promoting Free Software. And while the name might make us think of free "piwo" (that's beer in Polish), what participants got was free pizza.

In Berlin our group organized a Linux presentation day in which people could try Linux laptops and get all their questions answered about them.

Moreover, besides attending SCIDA, we participated in a panel about the DMA in Brussels. During the CPDP conference, we sat in the panel entitled "It takes two to tango: Public and private enforcement of the Digital Markets Act" at the CPDP conference, where we presented our work on the DMA enforcement, including our litigation against Apple at the European Union Court of Justice.

Digital sovereignty was also the topic in a lecture series in Regensburg, where, after watching the animated movie “Ada & Zangemann”, we took part in a discussion about this topic.

Ada was also present at several events: we had a movie screening and a kids' workshop at the Tübingen Digital Freedom Days, where we also ran a booth. In Utrecht, at the NLUUG conference, our booth had a focus on Ada & Zangemann too. But the highlight this month was in Italy: our Italian community celebrated three years with Ada at an event in Pesaro with more than 50 primary school kids… and ice cream for everyone!

One last recommendation if you are a German speaker (also good for practising your German skills 😉): listen to the latest episode of the Engineering Kiosk podcast, featuring Ada & Zangemann! There Matthias talks with Andy and Wolfgang about a lot if interesting background details of this illustrated story.

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