Over the past two decades, free and open source software advocacy groups across the Member States have been pressing their public services to do more with and for this type of software. The activists are motivated by their keen interest in - and concerns about - technology; open source is free of lock-in, allows inspection, and promotes collaboration.

They tend to be mostly active on online platforms where they state their case, organise protests and rally for support. As pressure groups go, they are a civil bunch, in good contact with government representatives and European institutions. They are versatile and tireless: one of the main free software groups in France, April (whose members includes public services) even has a radio show (see our September OSOR article on their interview with the Gendarmerie).

Unlike twenty years ago, open source is now mainstream even in public services: Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and France all have well-known public services working together to develop and support their open source solutions. Many public services share their software as open source: see our news reports on Italy's software catalogue, France's IT security agency ANSSI, and the RECAP project that already involves five Member States. Countries are starting to see open source as the tool to achieve digital sovereignty, see our article on Germany. Open source software (and hardware) is the topic of a two-day conference, jointly organised in November by the Commission's Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (CNECT) and its Directorate-General for Informatics (DIGIT).

Meanwhile, in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom there are established trade groups that represent open source business interests. And many of the bigger open source projects (such as Linux, Apache and LibreOffice) have their own foundations.

There are still plenty of Member States where free software needs more
activists. Yet the field is getting busy. Activists had better make sure
they stay relevant.