About the program
A WORD FROM THE CHAIRMEN OF THE PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
It powers the internet, clouds, critical infrastructure, AI models, often without it being said aloud. Open source no longer needs defending, it has already won!
The real question lies elsewhere: will we embrace it as the backbone of a sovereign and industrial digital world, or will we continue to treat it as a commodity?
The context leaves little room for ambiguity.
European regulation (CRA, NIS2, IA Act) mandates transparency, traceability, and control of dependencies. And the economy is brutally reminding us of the price of inaction: arbitrary price increases, license changes without notice, forced migrations… Organizations that failed to anticipate these changes are now paying the price for dependencies they accepted for too long.
It is at this crossroads that we position the Open Source Experience 2026 program, with a clear three-pronged approach: an industrial, sovereign, open Open Source.
- Industrial : Offers, SLAs, service providers who keep their promises in production over five or ten years.
- Sovereign : Regaining control over the code, the formats, the stacks. Sovereignty is built brick by brick, decision by decision.
- Open: To become part of an ecosystem, to contribute, to share roadmaps, to build sustainable digital commons.
Open Source Experience 2026 will be the place where decision-makers no longer come looking for promises, but for answers to concrete questions. How much does it cost, how long does it take, who provides support, what risks are involved, what gains are obtained, and how can we migrate without completely changing our practices?
This is nothing new for those who have followed the event for several years. The testimonials that fill the rooms all tell, essentially, the same story: taking back control. Leaving VMware, building an alternative to M365, installing trustworthy AI on open-source components… The demand isn't waning; it's accelerating.
But let's be honest: everything is not settled!
If the order remains very concentrated on a few major American players, it is not only due to inertia, but also because the open source offering is still scattered, sometimes difficult to read.
Multiplying projects without clarifying Who does what, who bears what responsibility, who guarantees what level of service? this puts CIOs and buyers in a difficult position.
One of the challenges of Open Source Experience 2026 will therefore be to make this offering more transparent. : to showcase complete chains (software, integration, support, managed services), alliances, consortia, companies which together are able to offer credible and sustainable alternatives.
And Behind the technique, there are the talentsWe cannot build an open digital world without trained teams, active communities, and companies that nurture open-source talent. Without talent, there is no sovereignty. Without sovereignty, there is no industry. This year's program dedicates an entire section to this: culture, skills, professions, project governance, and economic models.
Open Source Experience 2026 will not be just another trade show about the promises of digital technology.This will be a place where a CIO can come with their constraints, a buyer with their procedures, an elected official with their objectives, and leave with concrete leads, contacts, and lessons learned. It also reflects the conviction that migrating to open source doesn't mean replicating exactly what you're leaving behind; it means adapting your practices, your processes, and sometimes even your reflexes. That's often where success lies.
This year, we are putting our experience as an integrator, publisher, and entrepreneur at the service of an event that will bridge the gap between vision and practice, to demonstrate, together, that Open source is no longer an option!
April 15, 2026