Earlier this week we posted a blog post about me joining the European Open Source Academy. While the responses to this blog post have been positive, they have been muted and I fully understand why – so far, very little is known about this organisation.
Which is why I wanted to follow up that blog post with a more details to let you know more about the history, context and our vision of the future of this new organization. Because in reality the Academy simply does not exist yet – is this a scam or a bait and switch? No. It’s an amazing opportunity for Europe, for the Open Source community and its numerous developers and also for me personally.
The first origins of this organization come from the European Commission, where at some point the question was raised: Why do we not have an institution to recognize the numerous contributions that Europe and its citizens/residents have made to Open Source?
This sentiment eventually grew into an EU grant being granted to a number of EU organizations (see the bottom of the page) with the goal of establishing a new organization, selecting its initial team, putting together its founding documents and finally creating the actual legal organization. I’ll call these orgs the “Guardians” from here on.
This new organization aims to give prestigious awards to recognise the work of European Open Source contributors. The lofty and overarching goal is to look to the Nobel Prizes for inspiration – prestigious and with a lot of visibility. But an important note: These awards are open to any sort of contribution, not only to programming efforts. Our founding members include a number of open source heavyweights whose principal contributions are not programming!
However, today we stand a long way away from many of these goals – step by step we will need to continue working to build the organization, find the day-to-day management team and most importantly set the wheels of self sufficiency into motion. This process, which got its start years ago, now included me taking part in the planning meeting and induction ceremony at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (so convenient for me!).
The first inductees, along with our Guardians, spent a considerable amount of time creating the first foundational documents that establish the governance structure of the new organization. All members of the academy present in Barcelona spent the afternoon discussing the various aspects of these documents, weighting term-limits, diversity goals, transparency and countless other important aspects.
The EU grant funds the Guardians to support us through 2027; we plan to create a Belgian AISBL (a non-profit organization well suited for open source orgs) in 2026 or early 2027. At that point we’ll be on our own – a somewhat terrifying thought, given this very short timeline for self sufficiency. The picture that continually comes to my mind is one of parents carefully stacking their children onto a bicycle while getting ready to dismantle the training wheels:
The process by which the Guardians guide us to create this new organization strongly contrasts to when most of us joining the Academy created our own organisations. I had very little experience creating a non-profit and, mostly just filled with hope for the future, I took the “fake it until you make it” approach. Compare this to the Academy approach, where the Guardians bring a massive amount of experience to the table. And the participants add their also immense experience to the mix, often 20 years or more, making for a powerful starting team. Also, having our Guardians stand behind us for the next two years comforts me greatly.
I look to the future with slight trepidation, but an incredible amount of hope that we can significantly raise the awareness of the amazing contributors who make European Open Source what it is. It is an honor that the first Academy members decided to extend their invitation to me and I am grateful to accept, ready to help build a new organization.
For more detail, take a look at the Press Release about this event or the pictures of the ceremony and our tour of the Barcelona Super Computer!