Governments across Europe are increasingly adopting open-source software to reduce dependence on US technology companies and strengthen digital sovereignty.
Concerns over data security, particularly the reach of the US CLOUD Act, are accelerating the shift from proprietary platforms to open-source alternatives.
France, Germany and Italy have adopted Linux, LibreOffice and other open-source tools across parts of their public sectors, reducing software licensing costs.
African countries are also embracing open-source technologies. Tanzania says more than 90% of its government systems now run on open-source platforms.
In India, Kerala pioneered the use of open-source software in public education, saving hundreds of crores of rupees in licensing fees.
This awakening has come to Europe rather late in the day, unlike its 17th century Enlightenment which brought about the Age of Reason and changed the world forever. Finally, though, the rumblings of change over the past decade have now turned into a revolutionary movement across Europe against US tech giants as digital security concerns mount. Open-source software is coming into its own finally as governments in France, Germany and Switzerland and elsewhere turn their backs on the proprietary software of US companies, primarily Microsoft, to ensure digital sovereignty over their data, particularly in the defence sector. We have US President Donald Trump to thank for this.
Dangling over the world is the lethal CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act passed in 2018. It allows US law enforcement agencies to compel American companies to provide access to data stored abroad, even if that data is of sensitive nature and belongs to foreign governments, and is housed in data centres located outside the US. The Act conflicts with foreign data protection rules, such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but that is of little concern to the US. Given the unpredictability of Trump’s actions in recent times, dangers of the CLOUD Act have become more real and immediate.
It is not just data safety. There are genuine concerns that the US will use its tech companies to further its foreign policy goals, or out of plain vindictiveness. One such example being widely reported is Microsoft blocking the email account of Karim Khan, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, in the wake of US sanctions imposed on him. Microsoft has refuted the report made by a US news agency, but it highlights the tensions between the US’ sanctions policy and digital vulnerabilities of other countries.
The most telling switch to open-source public-sector migration was launched earlier this year in France, when its Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs ditched Microsoft Windows to set up Linux systems across key government systems. It was a move that made the world sit up as the French began expanding open-source tools across communications, productivity, and cloud systems to strengthen digital sovereignty. The significance of this switch is that it put Linux at the core of France’s sovereign computing strategy. It was not merely replacing an operating system but making Linux integral to critical digital layers, from workstations to the broader software stack. It is also being designed for use in artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Is it really a new phenomenon? After all, the French police, Gendarmerie Nationale, began to take its first steps towards open-source software as early as 2004 when it shifted its desktop productivity tools. Then followed the important change four years later when it began the transition to an Ubuntu-based operating system later known as GendBuntu. At the time, the high cost of Microsoft licences was the big factor underpinning the shift to open-source software. The Gendarmerie Nationale is saving huge amounts on the annual licence outflow to the US tech giant, with some reports putting the figure at €7 million annually.
There are several such examples where cost-cutting was the major reason for transitioning from proprietary software to open-source. Italy’s Ministry of Defence began shifting 150,000 of its workstations from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice more than a decade ago. This has resulted in a saving of €29 million annually. Additionally, a clutch of provincial administrations have switched to open-source. In Germany, Schleswig-Holstein, the country’s northern-most state, made waves when it replaced 30,000 of its government computers running on Microsoft Windows and Office to Linux and LibreOffice, a couple of years ago.
More than 90 per cent of Tanzania’s government systems now run on open-source technologies, all built around shared national infrastructure and open interfaces
The cost considerations that played a major role in the slow shift to open-source have now taken on new urgency over the question of data security and the imperative need for data sovereignty. Europe, which has been lax in its approach to data sovereignty, is moving fast to make up for lost time. In October last year, it set up the Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium, better known as EDIC, with five founding members—France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg—and seven others as observers to help develop open digital infrastructure and strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty. The first challenges EDIC has set for itself is to build sovereign and interoperable open-source components as well as the pilot of a European Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF), developed in collaboration with Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency.
And it is not just Europe that is forging this path. African nations, too, are adding to the momentum, helped to a large extent by the UN, which has been promoting global collaboration on open-source software to spur innovation and transparency. In June this year, at the UN’s annual Open Source Week, participants spoke of digital sovereignty as a paramount concern and endorsed open-source as the only way to build core digital infrastructure. Mistrust of US proprietary companies was a recurring theme at the meeting with country after country emphasising that American Big Tech could no longer be trusted to maintain the sanctity of sensitive data of other countries. The emphasis was on collaboration, not national silos, and ensuring interoperability and the ability to switch vendors without breaking essential services.
The most forceful presentation on digital sovereignty was made by Tanzanian Minister for Legal and Constitutional Affairs Angellah Jasmine Kairuki, who said Tanzania’s shift to open-source was a move from passive consumption of technology to active creators of technology. More than 90 per cent of Tanzania’s government systems now run on open-source technologies, all built around shared national infrastructure and open interfaces. This, she emphasised, is what digital sovereignty means in practice—“not isolation, but ownership; not dependence, but partnership on our terms”.
India is nowhere near achieving this feat, although one part of it, Kerala, was the first state to indicate a radical shift by emphasising the use of open-source software in its information technology policy of 2001. Later, it became the first state globally to widely deploy open-source software in its education system, when hundreds of thousands of school comput-ers operated on a customised Linux systems and used open-source educational software.
Implemented by the Marxist government of V S Achuthanandan in 2007, the far-sighted move has saved Kerala hundreds of crores in licensing fees. Revolutions start in unexpected corners of the world and continue in distant parts.
This column was originally published in the October 1-15, 2026 print edition of Down To Earth