Estonia has published its online classroom software, Schoolaby, as free and open source software under the EUPL licence. While this category of software attracted a lot of interest during the COVID lockdowns, the developers highlight that it can also assist with schooling for children who are absent due to illness or for other reasons, and the software will be ready if any future crisis causes schools to close again.

In France the government's Interministerial Digital Directorate, DINUM, has announced yet another partnership. Following on from existing partnerships with NLnet, Adullact and OW2, DINUM has now partnered with DesCodeuses (Women Who Code) to provide training to that organisation’s members. DesCodeuses helps women get involved in IT careers and DINUM is going to provide training for how to work with free and open-source software. Readers looking for more background on the state of FOSS in France might also be interested in the recent paper “Open source & logiciels libres” (in French), based on 15 expert interviews.

FOSDEM, 3 & 4 February in Brussels, is upon us and we’re happy to see the European Commission participating again, this time both in a presentation on the main stage and a panel on the Cyber Resilience Act and the Product Liability Directive. Live streams and recordings will be available for anyone who can’t be in Brussels or who can’t choose which of the 65 tracks to attend. FOSDEM is run by a volunteer community and is one of the biggest FOSS events in Europe. This year’s agenda features 515 speakers. This year European Commission organised their own satellite event too on Thursday 1 February in Brussels: Workshop on Open Source key areas for Digital Autonomy.

The OSOR Team is also busy. Our most recent publications are a new country intelligence report, on Nigeria, and a case study on Munich’s FOSS strategy. Nigeria's position as an IT HUB in Africa is well known, but we hope this report brings attention to the structures there that are working on free and open-source software and how Nigeria is connected to larger FOSS initiatives in Africa. Munich is an interesting story which highlights that progress is not always linear and setbacks can be learned from and overcome.

We look forward to a productive year and we hope that 2024 is already giving OSOR readers a few things to be positive about,

The OSOR Team