Reflections from FOSS Backstage 2026

https://fastwonderblog.com/2026/03/18/reflections-from-foss-backstage-2026/

FOSS Backstage is one of my favorite conferences, and again this year, I had an amazing experience. I saw interesting talks, caught up with friends, met new people, and still missed talking to a few people!

As with most conferences in Europe, digital sovereignty was a hot topic with quite a few talks touching on various aspects of the topic. Mirko Boehm talked about the role that open source can play in digital sovereignty, but it’s not quite so simple, since it requires participation in addition to adoption. Nicholas Gates gave a nice overview of the OSOR Report on Open Source in European Local Governments. Jan Lehnardt talked about the Sovereign Tech Agency’s Bug Bounty program. Andy Piper introduced how Digital Public Goods (DPGs), like Mastodon, can be part of a digital sovereignty strategy. Jutta Kreyss had a very interesting talk about how the city of Munich has approached measuring digital sovereignty. Dr. Daniel Gerber talked about how a FOSS foundation is working with the state of Saxony in Germany.

There were also many other interesting talks on other topics. Æva Black used an interesting story telling approach to cover some historical inflection points and what we can learn from them to improve the security of open source as we learn how to comply with the Cyber Resilience Act. Dr. Wolfgang Gehring shared some of what they’ve learned running an inner source program at Mercedes-Benz. Benjamin Nickolls and Andrew Nesbitt talked about how they dove into some ecosyste.ms data in an attempt to answer the question, “Is the InnerSource Commons good for open source?”, which they asked during a talk at last year’s FOSS Backstage event. Max Mehl and Cornelius Schumacher focused on the supply chain but by looking at how to balance risk, value, and people with the OSPO sitting at the intersection of all three. I also moderated a panel with Peculiar C. Umeh, Ruth Ikegah, and Stephen Walli to talk about educating the next generation of open source contributors.

These are just a few of the talks that I attended, and I heard that some of the talks I missed were also great! Videos of most or of the talks should be available soon, so I encourage you to have a look when they are published!

Related Resources:

Digital Sovereignty Runs on Open Source

The Impact of Funding for Sustainable Open Source Projects

Sustainable Open Source Leadership

From Data to Action: Building Healthy and Sustainable Open Source Projects

Contributor Sustainability Impacts Risk and Adoption of OSS Projects

What can your OSPO do about power dynamics, rug pulls, and other corporate impacts on OSS sustainability?

Funding Open Source Sustainability at CHAOSScon and FOSDEM

If you want help with your open source strategy, I’m available for consulting engagements.

Keynote image of Æva Black by the FOSS Backstage photographer.