Does FOSS Buy Sovereignty? Participation vs. Ownership

There is no digital sovereignty without FOSS. Proprietary software gate-keeps the rights to inspect, modify, and redistribute. These rights are not granted by default, making independence from foreign vendors structurally contingent on vendor goodwill. Open source removes those barriers. That much is settled.

But FOSS alone does not deliver sovereignty. Licenses grant rights; without capacity, those rights are hollow. The freedom to fork means nothing if no one understands the codebase. And the most effective way to build that understanding is through contribution itself: contribution is the best knowledge transfer mechanism. Actual sovereignty requires access to source code, institutional commitment to upstream participation, and earned community standing, not mere compliance with open licensing. This talk examines what that looks like in practice.

The talk introduces a 3×3 diagnostic framework, drawing on ZenDiS’s definition of digital sovereignty across three dimensions: Choice (which alternatives genuinely exist?), Adaptability (can you shape the technology to your needs?), and Influence (do you have standing in governance?). Each dimension runs from Dependent through Transitional to Sovereign. For each critical dependency, organisations can ask: where do we sit, and what would it take to move up?

Interdependent autonomy wins over isolation. International collaboration in FOSS communities often enhances rather than compromises strategic autonomy, reframing the question from “how do we reduce reliance on global communities?” to “which layers require participation, and which require direct control?”

The practical implication cuts through to procurement policy: every procurement decision is a vote for the future. Current EU strategies risk “sovereignty theatre”: adopting FOSS without investing in the participation that makes it real.