Welcome to the March 2026 edition of the LF Europe Newsletter.
Our Newsletter is Changing
LF Europe has brought you news specific to our community through this newsletter since its inception. As we have grown and evolved, we feel it is important to provide you with the most relevant information and resources to enable your communities to succeed. The decision has been made to streamline communications channels by combining the LF Europe newsletter with the primary Linux Foundation newsletter. The one you are reading will be the final edition of this newsletter.
All LF Europe projects will continue having the opportunity to share their news and updates through that newsletter, which goes to a much larger and broader audience. The Europe-specific section within the LF global newsletter will help you zero in on the items most important to you.
>> Read on to stay informed, engaged, and connected with the vibrant LF Europe community.
Announcing the Open Source Policy & Ecosystem Forum
LF Europe is launching the Open Source Policy & Ecosystem Forum on 8 June in Brussels. This new one-day, exclusive event brings together policymakers, industry leaders, and open source communities in key sectors relevant to Europe’s digital sovereignty. Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks >>
How Open Source Coordinates: A Guide for Policy Makers by Mirko Boehm, Senior Director for Community Development, Linux Foundation Europe
Free and open source software underpins critical infrastructure worldwide, yet policy makers struggle to engage effectively with this ecosystem. The challenge is that FOSS coordinates through horizontal networks of self-governing communities, not through central authority or hierarchical control. This article explains how coordination typically works in the FOSS ecosystem: through upstream-downstream dependencies, open governance processes, and self-organizing communities. Understanding these mechanisms reveals both powerful policy opportunities (technology transfer, standards enforcement, industrial policy) and fundamental constraints (reduced control, borderless collaboration, global investment impacts). Effective policy requires working with horizontal coordination structures, not against them. Learn more >>
Does FOSS Buy Sovereignty? Participation vs. Ownership
At FOSS Backstage 2026, Mirko Boehm led a thought-provoking session exploring a key question in Europe’s technology policy debate: Does using open source software automatically deliver digital sovereignty?
The talk highlighted an important distinction between passive adoption and active participation in open source communities. True sovereignty, the discussion argued, comes not just from using FOSS, but from developing technical capacity, contributing to projects, and shaping the governance of the technologies nations rely on.
Participants explored how deeper engagement in global open source ecosystems can strengthen Europe’s technological resilience and strategic autonomy. Learn more about the session >> Recording will be available soon.
Join the ELISA Project Workshop in London (June 9–11, 2026) | Co-hosted with Canonical, this in-person gathering brings together community members, contributors, and partners to collaborate, accelerate progress, and shape what’s next.
Held at Canonical’s London office near Tower Bridge, the event is free to attend (registration required). CFP and registrations are opening soon! Learn more >>
Driving Openness at the Edge: Highlights from the Margo PR1 Plugfest | This March, the first Margo PR1 Plugfest brought together nineteen leading organisations at Schneider Electric’s Marktheidenfeld facility for hands‑on interoperability testing across the industrial edge. With fourteen active testers collaborating in real time, the event delivered practical insights, strengthened cross‑vendor alignment, and demonstrated growing momentum behind the Margo vision: an open, interoperable ecosystem where applications, devices, and fleet managers work seamlessly across vendors. The strong engagement, collaborative energy, and tangible technical progress made this Plugfest a milestone moment and a sign of what’s ahead as the community continues to build toward a unified industrial edge. Learn more >>
Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST joins the NeoNephos Foundation | We are excited to announce the addition of one additional Associate Member, the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (ISST), to our foundation! Interested in shaping the future of cloud-native sovereignty by joining our foundation? NeoNephos offers different membership tiers which accommodate companies and non-profit organizations of all sizes. Learn more about the process >>
NeoNephos at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon 2026 | We will be at the upcoming KubeCon+CloudNativeCon 2026 with a physical booth! Visit us at booth 993 and interact with representatives from our projects directly! There'll even be a live demo of some of our projects! Additionally, check our KubeCon+CloudNativeCon 2026 talks here and the adjacent Open Sovereign Cloud Day talks >>
Outreach Committee formed | As specified in our charter, we have now started initiating the Outreach Committee. The Outreach Committee will be responsible for the design, development, and execution of community outreach efforts on behalf of the Governing Board. We will keep you posted on its progress.
NeoNephos LinkedIn Banner and E-Mail Signature | If you would like to represent NeoNephos in your Socials and/or Emails we also got you covered now! In our Open Artwork Viewer we prepared an Email Signature as well as a LinkedIn Banner for you to use. At the moment we also have some specifically for the upcoming KubeCon+CloudNativeCon, they will be updated with new upcoming events. Are you missing anything? Just let us know directly and we can prepare any NeoNephos-related visuals for you!
Join the Zephyr Project community in Copenhagen for an in-person meetup on April 16 (15:30–21:30), sponsored by Demant A/S.
This event brings together developers and enthusiasts interested in open source, embedded systems, and software development, featuring talks on real-world Zephyr use cases, subsystems, and new features. Seats are limited, registration required. Learn more >>
Enjoy unlimited access to e-Learning, exclusive subscriber microlearning, SkillCred exams, and more—plus subscriber-only perks. Get 25% off with code MAR26TOA (Annual) or MAR26TOM (Monthly). Offer ends 31 March.
*Monthly discount applies to the first three months.
LF Research recently published ROI for Open Source Software Contribution, a study based on results from a survey and quantitative model asking the community to estimate the benefits and investments of contributing to open source. Findings show that organizations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars maintaining private forks or developing internal workarounds, while those who choose to contribute upstream experience faster responses to security issues, increased development speeds, easier talent retention, and reported benefit-to-cost ratios of 2-5x on average.
This month, LF Research also published Zephyr® Turns 10: A Decade of Adoption, Maturity, and Ecosystem Evolution! This report marks Zephyr’s 10-year anniversary by exploring how the project is used and perceived by organizations and contributors and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead. Drawing on survey data and qualitative interviews, the report shows that the project has reached operational maturity and is widely deployed, with varied criticality and integration into products. Key tensions shape Zephyr’s next decade, with sustainability challenges and emerging technologies requiring caution and security measures.
Open Source Policy & Ecosystem Forum
8 June / Brussels
European Open Source Security Forum
9 June / Brussels
PyTorch Conference Europe
7-8 April / Paris
OpenSearchCon Europe
16-17 April / Prague
Linux Storage, Filesystem, MM & BPF Summit
4-6 May / Zagreb
DPDK Summit
12-13 May / Stockholm
Open Source in Finance Forum London
25 June / London
LF Energy Summit Europe
15-16 September / Berlin
MCP Dev Summit Europe
17-18 September / Amsterdam
Cloud Foundry Summit
21-22 September / Heidelberg
Open Source Summit Europe
7-9 October / Prague
To register for in-person attendance or virtual LF Europe events, please view our full calendar of events here, and be sure to subscribe to our events newsletter. Check out our Flickr stream for photos of past events!