The Invisible Foundation of Digital Sovereignty

For many, the incident made a structural problem visible for the first time: a critical vulnerability had to be mitigated through emergency security updates by a small group of maintainers working under immense time pressure, without institutional support or established response mechanisms. Yet discussions about digital sovereignty often focus primarily on software products and the alternatives needed to replace them, overlooking the fact that the long-term independent development and operation of all software depends on the openness of the software ecosystem itself. Software production within an open ecosystem has proven to be one of the most effective strategies for reducing costs while simultaneously increasing innovation, competitiveness, and security. A study by the European Commission estimates that open-source software contributes between €65 billion and €95 billion annually to the EU economy. At the core of this challenge is a market failure affecting digital commons, including open source software components: while they generate immense public value, their maintenance and continued development often depend on a very small number of individuals carrying an outsized share of responsibility. Some public administrations have already begun to respond: following the migration of more than 44,000 mailboxes and 80 percent of its administration to open source software, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein is reinvesting approximately €9 million in saved licensing costs directly back into the open source ecosystem.