Liebe Mitstreiter,
via OSBA habe ich diesen Appell unterzeichnet und würde euch gerne informieren und rekrutieren. Könnt ihr auch gerne weitergeben.
Viele Grüße
Matthias
Hello Matthias Kunkel,
thank you kindly for your signature to APELL's Open Letter on the occasion of the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty – Declaration of Digital Independence. Public co-signatures: digitalindependence.eu
You can now find the open letter and your signature on our dedicated website https://digitalindependence.eu/ where the full letter can be downloaded and public co-signatures can be added.
Please share the website and the letter with your network! You can also share our posts on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/apell/, Mastodon https://eupolicy.social/@apell, and Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/apell.info. Call on the French and German governments to change the closing declaration
Over the weekend, EurActiv published the draft closing declaration https://www.euractiv.com/news/european-council-document-signals-backing-for-eu-digital-sovereignty-push/ for the summit (subscription needed).
The document uses unfortunate language, stating that "Open-source solutions can play an important role enhancing digital sovereignty, provided they meet high cybersecurity standards and are complemented by reliable proprietary technologies where appropriate."
This language does not reflect
- the fact that between 90% of business software is based on Open Source https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164121221002442. The very "proprietary technologies" the document speaks of are itself dependent on the enterprise-grade, de-facto standard that is Open Source.
The draft does not reflect the realities of
- the German state of Schleswig-Holstein https://www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/ministerien-behoerden/I/Presse/PI/2024/CdS/241125_cds_open-source-strategie where 25.000 work places are currently being transitioned to Open Source software,
- the choice of Open Source for the government data centre in the state of Thuringia https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/big-tech-unabhaengigkeit-102.html,
- the choice of openDesk in the German armed forces https://www.golem.de/news/opendesk-open-source-fuer-die-bundeswehr-2504-195144.html, nor
- the use of Linux as a desktop for 82.000 seats in the French Gendarmerie since 2008 https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/egovernment/news/fr-gendarmerie-saves-million, to name only four.
We urge the French and German governments to reflect that Open Source is an essential enabler of digital sovereignty: transparency and auditability enable independent security assessments. Open Source strengthens trust in digital infrastructure, provides independence from single vendors, and preserves strategic autonomy in particular in critical areas.
Once more, and in the name of APELL and our partner organisations, thank you for supporting the letter and for sharing it with your network. Together let us establish that digital sovereignty is possible with Open Source – today!
Kind regards, Sebastian Raible
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-- Sebastian Raible – Director EU Government Affairs (he/him) APELL - The European Open Source Software Business Association https://apell.info/ Transparency Register: 765379449482-59
sebastian.raible@apell.info mailto:sebastian.raible@apell.info
* * * * * Matthias Kunkel Geschäftsführer ILIAS open source e-Learning e.V.
Vereinsheim & Geschäftsstelle: Berrenrather Straße 177 • 50937 Köln
Fax: +49 221 5607 8458 Web: www.ilias.de E-Mail: verein@ilias.de
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