Friday 27 November 2026, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Practical information (venue, access, lunch) and registration are on their own pages.
How the day works
The EOLE 2026 cycle, “Open Source & Sovereignty”, started in June 2026 with an online kick-off workshop. Lawyers, technologists, public-sector staff and academics discussed how Free Software, Open Source and open AI contribute to digital autonomy in Europe. Six themes came out of that workshop. Each one has its own thread on the EOLE forum, where the discussion has continued since.
The main event takes place in person on Friday 27 November 2026 at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Poblenou campus (Sala Nau), Barcelona, from 10am to 5pm, with a welcome coffee from 9:30. It is a working day. After a short opening, participants work in small groups around tables, following the World Café method. Each table deals with one theme. A facilitator leads the discussion and a rapporteur takes notes. Participants change table between rounds, so that each theme is discussed by several groups during the day. At the end of the afternoon, the rapporteurs present the results of each table to the whole room.
Between four and six themes will be worked on during the day, depending on the interest expressed by registered participants and on the number of people attending. The registration form asks which themes you would like to work on.
What participants take away
The day has two aims. The first is a clearer and shared understanding of what sovereignty means in Europe today, seen from the practice of Free Software, Open Source and open AI. The second is new working relationships between people, ideas and projects that deal with the same questions from the legal, technical, institutional and economic sides. Each table will identify concrete follow-ups.
The notes of the tables will be written up and published on the EOLE forum and website in the weeks after the event.
The themes
- What does, and should, “open source” mean in EU law (CRA, AI Act, Data Act, tenders)? Each new EU text gives its own reading of “open source”. This table looks at the gap between the legal wording and what the community means, at when a project becomes a “product”, and at how to write a definition usable in regulation and in public tenders.
- Funding sovereignty: public money, public code, mutualisation and virtuous public-private models Public money for sovereignty is flowing. This table looks at how it is structured: conditions to open what is publicly funded, contracts where the developer keeps the rights with an obligation to publish, mutualisation between administrations, and how to fund fundamental projects that nobody sees.
- The cultural problem: mindsets, procurement and the people who say “no” in public administration In many countries the law favours open source and administrations still buy proprietary solutions. This table looks at the people and roles involved (procurement, legal services, technical teams, OSPOs), at what blocks adoption and reuse, and at the arguments that work.
- Sovereign by design versus the global commons: nationality, lock-in and export control Open source projects draw contributions from everywhere. This table looks at what can be national or European in open source (skills, operations, hosting), at what “avoiding lock-in” means, and at the specific case of export-controlled and defence-related software.
- Open source in the AI age: open weights versus open source AI, training data and the community Open-weights models and open source AI models are not the same thing. This table looks at what each one gives in terms of control, at use restrictions in model licences, at the dependence on hosted AI services, at training data, and at the role of the community when a large share of code is generated.
- From control to the capacity to govern: addressing open source’s own weaknesses Sovereignty also means the ability to run, audit, maintain and adapt one’s own infrastructure. This table looks at the weaknesses of open source as infrastructure (funding, maintenance, security, maturity), at the measures that reduce them, and at what a trustworthy checklist for procuring and auditing “sovereign” systems could contain.
Each thread on the forum presents the theme in more detail: why it matters for sovereignty, what was said in June, what already exists to build on, and the open questions.
Indicative schedule
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 09:30 | Welcome coffee |
| 10:00 | Opening: the cycle so far, how the day works, opening intervention |
| 10:30 | Morning session: table discussions, two rounds |
| 12:30 | Lunch |
| 14:00 | Afternoon session: table discussions, two rounds |
| 16:00 | Reporting by the rapporteurs, open discussion |
| 16:40 | Closing remarks and next steps |
| 17:00 | End |
The schedule may still change, in particular for the opening and closing interventions. Lunch and coffee are expected on site; the registration form asks whether you will join for lunch.
Taking part before the day
Everyone interested can take part in the preparation, whether or not they can come to Barcelona. Post references, cases, counter-points and projects in the forum threads, or send them to the committee through the contact page. Everything received before 27 November will be given to the tables. People willing to act as rapporteur on a theme can also say so when registering or on the forum.