Secure, sovereign, and sleek. That’s how the new open-source EU OS is being promoted: as a concept of an operating system specific to the public sector that aspires to become, in the future, a project of the European Commission (EC). For now, however, it is being developed by a community of enthusiasts worried that given that EU public servants use thousands of computers, using and managing Windows can represent a significant expense. Although it presents itself as an open-source operating system, EU OS is, in reality, a proof of concept based on the Fedora operating system. It uses existing Linux distributions and proposes a common desktop environment and a unified method for managing software, devices, users, and data. It allows for the application of modifications, such as national, regional, or sector- and organization-specific layers.

The open-source project is aimed at the European public sector, with a secure approach based on open code, sovereignty, and the capacity to function on both new and old hardware. It seeks to facilitate migration from more commercial systems, like Windows, in two years instead of twenty.

Beyond cost savings, which can be prohibitive and lead to the rise of alternatives, the open-source project’s motivation is to gain independence from software suppliers, promote the use of open standards to foster innovation and enable internal code analysis. For now, as explained on the initiative’s webpage, the open-source EU OS remains a concept being developed by a community of enthusiasts and volunteers, although the ultimate objective is to obtain backing from the European Commission..

Outdated open-source strategy

Despite the European Union’s (EU) recognition of open-source software (OSS) as a significant economic driver, contributing an estimated €65 to €95 billion to the EU economy in 2018, the EC has not updated its Open Source Software Strategy since the conclusion of the 2020–2023 plan. Moreover, the EC predicted in 2021 that a 10% increase in contributions to the OSS code would annually generate an additional 0.4% to 0.6% in GDP, as well as more than 600 additional ICT start-ups in the EU.

In December 2021, the Commission adopted new rules to expedite the dissemination of OSS, allowing for quicker publication of software source code owned by the Commission. Among the plans were to “set up an Open Source Programme Office in the Commission” and to “integrate open source in internal IT governance.” However, since the strategy’s expiration, there has been no public announcement of a successor plan.

Use cases of open-source

According to the EU OS developers, some regions outside of Europe “realised already the benefits of an operating system under their control (for the best and the worst of their users).” For instance, the Russian Federation is deploying Astra Linux to replace Microsoft’s Windows. Other notable migrations to open-source are taking place in the city of Munich, in the French Gendarmerie (which migrated 82,000 computers), the Swiss Federal Court, the German region of Schleswig-Holstein, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).