Operationalising open source software strategy: challenges and opportunities

"Operationalising open source software strategy: challenges and opportunities," presented by Ignacio Lacalle (Universitat Politècnica de València), Georgios P. Katsikas (UBITECH Ltd), Giovanni Rimassa (Martel), Manrique Lopez (Eclipse Foundation), and Lucian Balea (RTE), explores how open source is adopted, scaled, and governed across European research and industry ecosystems. This session is part of the Open Community for Research at Open Community Experience 2026 in Brussels, Belgium. This session brings together perspectives from EU research projects, telecommunications, cloud infrastructure, and critical systems to examine how open source moves from project outputs to operational deployment. A recurring theme is the gap between widespread usage and limited large-scale, trusted adoption in industrial environments. Speakers highlight the role of large-scale pilots, open calls, and ecosystem coordination in bridging this gap. EU-funded initiatives use cloud-edge-IoT architectures and distributed systems to unify heterogeneous resources, while leveraging open source as a foundation for interoperability and reuse. Governance emerges as a key constraint. Contributions, licensing models, and community processes determine whether open source projects scale beyond experimentation. The session also examines procurement strategies, industrial participation, and the role of foundations in establishing trust, compliance, and long-term sustainability. Key topics covered - operationalising open source in eu projects - cloud-edge-iot continuum architectures - large-scale pilots and industrial validation - open calls and ecosystem funding models - telco cloud and data space convergence - orchestration and federated infrastructure - tm forum apis and ngsi-ld standards - interoperability across heterogeneous systems - governance models and contribution workflows - procurement and industrial adoption strategies - role of foundations in trust and compliance - community building and ecosystem growth Why this matters Open source is widely used but often not deployed at scale in critical systems. Aligning architecture, governance, and ecosystem incentives is necessary to move from fragmented adoption to interoperable, production-ready infrastructure across Europe. About OCX26 Open Community Experience 2026 is the Eclipse Foundation’s flagship event, held in Brussels, Belgium. It brings together developers, architects, and industry leaders to explore open source technologies across domains including AI, automotive, tooling, and cloud systems, with a focus on practical implementation. Learn more at https://www.ocxconf.org/ Chapters 00:00 introduction to operationalising open source 00:23 cloud-edge-iot continuum and distributed systems 02:47 open source adoption across eu projects 05:02 gap between usage and large-scale deployment 07:29 industrial pilots and ecosystem validation 10:38 mapping open source tools to real use cases 15:29 telco edge and data space convergence 20:02 federation of infrastructure and services 23:32 copilot architecture and orchestration layers 27:02 evolution of distributed systems and telco cloud 33:31 euro3c and large-scale infrastructure pilots 35:27 open source strategy and licensing models 38:03 linking industrial projects with open source ecosystems 40:07 governance, sovereignty, and trust challenges 41:27 balancing top-down and bottom-up innovation 44:46 open collaboration platforms and ecosystem growth 52:17 challenges in adoption and contribution models 55:04 community building and long-term sustainability