Guest: Hilary Carter (LinkedIn)
Organization: Linux Foundation (Twitter)

Although Linux Foundation Europe has only just celebrated its first anniversary, it has not wasted any time in getting stuck in. Its recent campaign to raise awareness about the European Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the potential detrimental impact it could have on open source in Europe is just one of their key focuses.

In this episode, Hilary Carter, SVP of Research and Communications at Linux Foundation while at Open Source Summit in Bilbao, Spain, talks about the research and reports that Linux Foundation Europe has been undertaking. She goes on to discuss the progress Linux Foundation Europe has made over the past year and some of the hot trends in the open source world.

Key highlights from the video interview are:

• Carter talks about their work which is specific to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the opportunity there is for open source software to help accelerate the UN SDGs. She discusses the Linux Foundation report that was published in September that explains how Linux Foundation projects and communities are aligned with the UN SDGs.
• Sustainability continues to be a hot topic and a key focus for the Linux Foundation. Carter explains how some of their projects are created with specific goals to meet net-zero targets and to create energy efficient infrastructure, while others enable the goals in a more indirect way.
• Carter discusses how the Linux Foundation is helping the public sector realize the value of open source with tools, resources, and background material on other sectors that have led the open source collaboration in Europe.
• Carter talks about the role of open source in the momentum towards digital independence and sovereignty in Europe. She explains how the LF Research Program has been using data to provide evidence to open up conversations, identify who is leading the public sector transformation, and begin to forge those collaborations.
• With Linux Foundation Europe celebrating its first anniversary, Carter gives us an update on the progress that has been made. She tells us they have formed four new projects and that Microsoft and Google have now joined the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF), and why this is significant for the European payment ecosystem and for the public sector.
• The Cyber Resilience Act is still raising concerns, with the Linux Foundation Europe launching a campaign this week, #fixtheCRA. Carter explains how it is a call to action for European organizations to express their concerns to their respective members of European Parliament.
• With Generative AI becoming the latest hot topic in the tech world, Carter talks about the importance of keeping AI open. She discusses a survey they launched this week on Generative AI to find out to what extent organizations are using it, the value they are deriving from it, and their views on whether AI needs to be open.

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.