The European Commission is to host the Open Source Beyond 2020 workshop on the future of open source hardware and software next week, featuring a panel on the advent of open source hardware and the Internet of Things chaired by the head of the Competitive Electronics Industry DG Connect A3 Unit Colette Maloney.

“Open Source has become mainstream across all sectors of the software industry during the past 10 years,” the Commission writes of the event. “To a large extent, open software re-use has proven economically efficient. The level of maturity of Open Source Hardware (OSH) remains far lower than that of Open Source Software (OSS). However, business ecosystems for OSH are developing fast so that OSH could constitute a cornerstone of the future Internet of Things (IoT) and the future of computing.

“There are questions that are pertinent to be asked with regard to the future of OSS and OSH: Is the dramatic expansion of Open Source Software going to continue? Where is the limit? Will Open Source Hardware follow the path of its sibling? In November 2019, the European Commission will be organising a workshop to analyse the future of Open Source Software and hardware. The workshop will bring stakeholders together to discuss current challenges, opportunities, R&I and also economic and policy-making issues. More specifically, the workshop will focus on: the role of Open Source as innovation enabler; how Open source can contribute towards the technological independence of Europe; open source in the industry and the public sector.”

The event opens with a panel on the role of open source as an innovation enabler before another on open source hardware and the IoT featuring input from the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, ETH Zurich, Texas Instruments, the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, and two universities. A further panel is set to discuss open source in the manufacturing industry, while another investigates how to lower the barriers to entry for small and medium enterprises providing open source services to the public sector – and there are additional sessions throughout the two-day event.

Open Source Beyond 2020 takes place in Brussels on the 14-15th of November 2019. A full agenda has been published, while more information and a registration link can be found on the official website.