Open Source Conference Luxembourg

Why free software and digital sovereignty are made for one another

While the term "digital sovereignty" came to fame in particular over the last couple of years, many of its underlying principles have ever since been shared with FLOSS projects throughout the globe. The use of open standards and file formats, a free software license, worldwide collaboration across the borders of continents, organized in democratically driven projects: this is the recipe to give everyone control over their data and their digital lives. While Digital Sovereignty is a global movement for our digital commons, it requires action and investment on a local level. It makes countries and governments more independent and more resilient and it helps every citizen to overcome the digital gap. Based on the example of LibreOffice, in this talk Florian explains the goal of the project, the mission of the nonprofit foundation behind, and gives insight into some of the recent adoptions and their success stories - and explains why a sole Europe-centric view does not match the reality of the worldwide project.

Florian Effenberger

Florian has been a free and open source enthusiast since 2004. He works for The Document Foundation, the nonprofit behind LibreOffice and previously volunteered in marketing and infrastructure. As a student, he designed educational computer systems for schools, including software deployment based on free software and was a frequent contributor to a variety of professional magazines worldwide on topics such as free software, open standards and legal matters. A proud uncle, he loves to spend time with the family and occasionally blogs about various topics, including community building, free and open source software and computer networks. Based around Munich, he helped to create the local open source meetings and shaped the tasty idea of open source cooking.