OW2: an industrial consortium to support open source projects

The interview

Q: What is your name?

Hi, my name is Pierre-Yves Gibello and I'm the president of OW2. I have taken over from Cédric Thomas who has been president of OW2 for 15 years, but I've been involved with OW2 for a long time already.

Q: What is your product?

We don't have a product, because we are an NGO, that officially was launched in 2007 but actually has a more than 20 year history being an informal industrial consortium that works on open source projects. Back then members included INRIA, Athos, Orange, Bluemind, Cap Gemini and others. 

We work on various projects who are chosen through an open selection process by our members and which usually involve cooperation to develop code and OW2 being project leaders. 

Q: What European policies do you suggest to ensure sustainable development of your technology and its adoption?

Things have been moving in Europe over the last 15 years. There are many initiatives today: The Open Science Committee projects, the Free Software Committee, the Eclipse platform, SAT4J, DINUM, and many more. We have an official open source approach in Europe on the one hand. One the other hand there is still a lot to be done since integrators like Athos or Cap Gemini seldomly work with open source solutions from Europe. They primarily use US software and provide service for these solutions, leaving Europe at risk of exposing sensitive data and not getting closer to sovereignty. Our own French and European technologies are often used in the US, but in Europe, we have a hard time maintaining or increasing our market share.

Many promising initiatives are working on promoting open source technologies to governments and we need our governments to acknowledge that open source from Europe is essential for sovereignty. For us it is also important to federate between these initiatives to have a stronger political impact. 

Q: To what extent are the interoperability projects financed by France and Europe likely to guarantee the development of European cloud technologies?

There are grants on European level (e.g. Horizon 2027) so projects can receive financial support and academic partners. Financing this type of projects will help solutions to mature, then they need to be maintained over the long term.

Q: Can you give us an idea of sales/staff/clients/end users over the last 3 years?

OW2 is trying to obtain general interest status, which would help us enourmously to stabilise our association and secure employment contracts.