Public procurement is more than an administrative process: it can serve as a powerful lever for reducing vendor lock-in and strengthening technological sovereignty across Europe. For this, a Free Software First approach is needed. But how can Free Software be procured without rewarding freeloaders and openwashers? Introducing and applying award criteria beyond price is essential for this.
Simply prioritising Free Software in tenders can incentivise some vendors to openwash proprietary products or undercut providers who actually develop and maintain Free Software by selling code they did not create or support themselves, without contributing back to the original developers. Such destructive market behaviour will not lead to technological sovereignty and also harms the Free Software ecosystem, undermining the intended benefits of fair procurement.
In this talk, we will discuss how public administrations can detect and mitigate these practices by introducing effective and fair procurement criteria — a topic the Free Software Foundation Europe has been working on intensively in recent years. We will also explore how the upcoming EU procurement directive reform could support this shift and how it should be designed to advance Europe’s technological sovereignty through Free Software and the “Public Money? Public Code!” principle.
