Free Software first approach in EU and 2026 YH4F winners
About to board a train to the Dolomites to meet our community at SFSCON 2026, we are also keeping an eye on Brussels. The update of European procurement rules has begun, and we already shared our position with our representatives: digital sovereignty requires Free Software. Besides, YH4F 2026 has just shown what becomes possible when young developers are empowered with software freedom.
EU Policy: the Public Procurement Act under reform
The European Commission has published its proposal for the Public Procurement Act, the starting point for reforming European procurement rules. The proposal recognises Free Software as a way to pursue innovation goals but it doesn’t recognise its contribution to resilience while doing little against vendor lock-in, poor interoperability, and lack of control over public digital infrastructure.
We are asking the European Parliament and Council to:
- make control over software the measure of technological sovereignty, secured through the rights to use, study, share, and improve it;
- apply these rights to all software procurement, not only innovation projects.
Choosing a European supplier is not enough to guarantee control. Public bodies must be able to understand and modify the software they buy, share it, and choose who maintains it.
Want to go deeper? Listen to episode 57 of the Software Freedom Podcast for our first take on the proposal and why it needs to have a Free Software first approach, or read our news item. If you haven’t done it yet, you can also sign the “Public Money? Public Code!” open letter.
YH4F 2026: meet the winners
The Public Procurement Act is not the only news from Brussels. We travelled there to host the award ceremony of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom (YH4F) 2026, our programming competition for teenagers. In this fifth edition, more than 85 participants aged 14 to 18 from 21 countries built their own Free Software projects. The only condition: anyone must be able to use, study, share, and improve the result.
The six winning projects are:
Ultimate Hacker Award (awarded with €4,096 cash prize)
Juan Ramón (Spain)
Juan Ramón won the Ultimate Hacker Award with NumOS, Free Software firmware and operating system for a Free Software scientific graphing calculator.Elite Hacker Award (awarded with €2,048 cash prize)
Simon (Germany)
Simon received the Elite Hacker Award for FindMyWeb, a project that enables users to build and own their own trackers using existing networks, without relying on proprietary, vendor-specific devices.Awesome Hacker Award (awarded with €1,024 cash prize)
Konstantinos (Greece)
Konstantinos won the Awesome Hacker Award with SmartFoodSave, an LLM-assisted platform designed to reduce food waste in school meal operations. The project combines data collection, machine-learning predictions, semantic meal normalisation, nutrition-aware menu planning, and donation-point discovery in a single full-stack system.Best Arts Project (awarded with €1,024 cash prize)
Marius (Germany)
Marius won the Best Arts Project award with Pianove , a Free Software piano-learning application that works entirely offline, without an account or subscription. Users can practice pieces from MusicXML files using a MIDI keyboard. The application is built in Python using Pygame.Best Community Support Project (awarded with €1,024 cash prize)
Tommaso (Italy)
Tommaso received the Best Community Support Project award for Needy, a secure, geolocated, self-hostable platform that connects people who need help with volunteers willing to offer their time. Users can request support with tasks such as grocery shopping, companionship, and small repairs, while volunteers can earn "Reputation Hours" in return.Best Teamwork Project (awarded with €1,024 cash prize)
Stella, David, Florian, and Mattis (Germany)
The Best Teamwork Project award went to RastiSearch, a federated search engine designed to operate independently of major technology companies' indexes. The project emphasises decentralisation, integration with Tor, accessible self-hosting, and tools that make it easier for users to build their own web crawlers.
What these projects have in common is digital sovereignty in practice. A calculator you can inspect and modify, trackers you own, a search engine no single company controls, a platform you can host yourself: each one gives users control over their technology. This is the same principle we are defending in the procurement debate, and these teenagers' projects show that it works.
Do you know a young person who loves to tinker? Registration for YH4F 2027 is open. The programming period runs from 1 January to 30 June 2027. Find all the details at yh4f.org or register directly.
See you at SFSCON 2026!
Digital sovereignty is also the theme of this year’s South Tyrol Free Software Conference (SFSCON), which takes place on 13 and 14 November in Bolzano. As usual, most of the FSFE team will be there, with talks, workshops, our Italian community, and a booth. We are also looking forward to attending many interesting talks and discussions, and to meeting our community in person. Come say hello!
Want a glimpse of what we have planned? Find all the details about our participation at SFSCON here, or check the full programme at sfscon.it.
NGI: Is LLM-generated code copyrightable?
On 29 October, our Legal Programme Manager Gabriel Ku Wei Bin gave an online legal education webinar on the copyrightability of code generated with Large Language Models (LLMs). The session explored the legal questions that arise when LLMs are used in Free Software development, particularly around copyright and licensing, and left time for questions. It was part of the NGI0 Webinars organised by the NLnet Foundation.
Missed it? You can watch the recording and download the slides,. If you prefer reading, our article Copyrightability of LLM-generated code: Can we license “vibe code” into Free Software? covers the legal principles and court decisions in depth.
Tinkering, sharing and building together
Matthias Kirschner was a guest on the “Educating to Be Human” podcast, in the episode “Software Freedom and the Case for Open”. He talks about the very human desire to explore, tinker, share knowledge, and build on each other’s ideas, and why digital autonomy and decentralised access still matter today.
That same spirit of tinkering is at the heart of Ada & Zangemann, our illustrated book about a girl who discovers the joy of tinkering, understanding, and controlling technology. The book is now available as an open educational resource on OER Commons, a public digital library where educators around the world explore, create and collaborate to improve curriculum. Teachers can now bring the story, and its message about software freedom, into their classrooms.
October at the FSFE: events around Europe
October was busy for our community across Europe. We started in Kosovo, where Dario Presutti told the story of our 25 years of work for software freedom at Software Freedom Kosova in Pristina. We then ran our hands-on “Community Infrastructure Clinic” workshop twice, in Luxembourg and at PrivacyCamp in Brussels, where participants diagnosed digital dependencies and designed a “prescription” for healthier infrastructure.
Our local groups kept the software freedom spirit alive closer to home.
In Berlin, the group held two Linux Presentation Days for people who
wanted to try GNU/Linux, and the Pesaro community ran four install
parties as a warm-up for Linux Day Pesaro, where Luca Bonissi
represented the FSFE. We also met in Vienna, Zurich, Berlin (online),
and the Netherlands. Plus our info booth at the Carinthian Linux Day in
Villach, Austria.
Thank you to everyone who organised,
attended, and volunteered!
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Your editor,
Ana