Should Open-Source Target Sovereignty Or Market Dominance?

Introduction

The open source movement stands at a critical juncture. As European governments draft new strategies positioning open-source as infrastructure for digital sovereignty and, as China deploys open source AI models as instruments of geopolitical influence, a fundamental question emerges that transcends technical considerations. Should the open-source movement pursue software sovereignty or market dominance as its organizing principle? This question is not merely semantic. It shapes licensing choices, governance structures, funding models and ultimately determines whether open source becomes a force for technological autonomy or simply another substrate for platform capitalism.​ The distinction between these two aspirations runs deeper than strategy. Sovereignty emphasizes control, autonomy and the capacity to shape one’s technological destiny independent of external dependencies. Dominance focuses on market share, widespread adoption, and the displacement of proprietary alternatives through superior reach and network effects. While these goals occasionally align, they frequently diverge in ways that force uncomfortable trade-offs about the movement’s ultimate purpose.

It shapes licensing choices, governance structures, funding models and ultimately determines whether open source becomes a force for technological autonomy or simply another substrate for platform capitalism

The Sovereignty Imperative

Digital sovereignty has emerged from theoretical concept to operational necessity across multiple geographies. The European Union, facing what officials describe as an 80 percent dependence on non-EU digital products and infrastructure, has explicitly re-framed open-source from a development methodology to a strategic weapon against technological subordination. When 92 percent of European data resides in clouds controlled by United States’ technology companies, sovereignty becomes not an abstract ideal but an existential requirement for maintaining regulatory authority and democratic governance.​ The sovereignty framework recognizes that technological infrastructure is never neutral. As research on digital colonialism demonstrates, dependence on foreign technology platforms creates structural vulnerabilities that extend beyond security concerns into the realm of economic value extraction and geopolitical leverage. For nations and regions seeking to maintain policy autonomy, the ability to audit code, modify systems, and ensure operational continuity without external permission becomes a fundamental aspect of self-determination.​

For nations and regions seeking to maintain policy autonomy, the ability to audit code, modify systems, and ensure operational continuity without external permission becomes a fundamental aspect of self-determination.​

Open-source serves sovereignty through what Red Hat characterizes as the four pillars of digital autonomy: technical sovereignty through transparent foundations and vendor choice, data sovereignty through controlled infrastructure deployment, operational sovereignty through independent system management and assurance sovereignty through verifiable security standards. Unlike proprietary systems where control remains permanently centralized, open source distributes the capacity for technological self-determination across communities, organizations, and nations.​ Yet sovereignty achieved through open source differs fundamentally from autarky or isolation. As articulated in European policy frameworks, the goal is “open strategic autonomy” rather than protectionism. This concept acknowledges that sovereignty built on collaborative interdependence proves more resilient than sovereignty pursued through isolation. The Linux kernel, developed through global collaboration among 11,089 contributors across 1,780 organizations, demonstrates how distributed authority can produce strategic assets no single nation could independently create. The sovereignty model faces legitimate challenges. China’s deployment of open source AI models like Qwen and DeepSeek as vehicles for technological diplomacy reveals how sovereignty claims can mask new forms of dependency. When nations build their AI infrastructure on Chinese open source foundations, they exchange one form of technological subordination for another, albeit with different geopolitical alignments. This pattern suggests that sovereignty requires not merely access to open source code but the cultivation of domestic capacity to understand, modify, and maintain critical systems.​

The Dominance Paradox – Market Power and Its Discontents

The alternative framing positions widespread adoption and market dominance as the movement’s primary objective. This perspective draws legitimacy from open-source’s remarkable penetration into global digital infrastructure. Linux powers 96.3 percent of the top one million web servers, 100 percent of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, and forms the foundation for 70 to 90 percent of modern software. By these metrics, open source has achieved dominance that proprietary alternatives could never match through conventional competitive strategies.​ Advocates of the dominance framework argue that market share creates virtuous cycles. As adoption increases, more contributors join communities, quality improves through distributed peer review, and network effects make proprietary alternatives increasingly untenable. The success of Linux in enterprise environments demonstrates how dominance in foundational infrastructure layers creates gravitational pull that draws resources, talent, and institutional support towards open ecosystems.​

However, the dominance paradigm confronts a fundamental contradiction – market power often accrues to entities that contribute least to the commons

However, the dominance paradigm confronts a fundamental contradiction – market power often accrues to entities that contribute least to the commons. Despite open source forming the substrate of contemporary software, research indicates that the economic value generated by European open source developers is captured predominantly outside the bloc, benefiting major global technology corporations. This pattern of value capture without commensurate contribution creates what scholars describe as “platform capitalism,” where proprietary platforms monetize collaborative labor while contributors receive minimal compensation.​ The tragedy manifests most starkly in cloud computing. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have built enormously profitable businesses atop open source infrastructure, yet their contributions to underlying projects often fail to match the value extracted. When cloud providers can offer managed services based on open source databases without sharing improvements, the sustainability of the commons itself becomes threatened. This dynamic prompted MongoDB, Redis, and other projects to adopt proprietary licenses that restrict cloud provider usage, fragmenting the open source ecosystem in the process.​ The dominance model also fails to prevent the concentration of power within ostensibly open communities. Research on vendor lock-in demonstrates that network effects and switching costs create barriers to competition even in markets built on open foundations. When Microsoft acquires GitHub for billions of dollars, the platform where 24 million developers collaborate becomes a tool for extracting value from peer production. The capacity to surveil developer activity, influence roadmaps and integrate proprietary services transforms the commons into an enclosure.​

Research on vendor lock-in demonstrates that network effects and switching costs create barriers to competition even in markets built on open foundations

Market power achieved through open source does not inherently challenge monopolistic concentration. As research on technology monopolies reveals, companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft have systematically acquired or marginalized potential competitors while using open-source as a development strategy rather than a governance philosophy. Their dominance rests not on proprietary code, but on control of data, infrastructure and customer relationships i.e. dimensions orthogonal to source code availability.​

Governance Architectures

The tension between sovereignty and dominance manifests most clearly in governance decisions. Commons-based peer production, as theorized by Yochai Benkler, emphasizes non-hierarchical collaboration where participants self-organize around modular tasks. This model enables global cooperation without centralized authority, making it conceptually aligned with sovereignty rather than dominance. The modularity and transparency that enable peer production also facilitate forking, the ultimate sovereignty mechanism that allows communities to reject unwanted direction.​ Yet governance research on projects like the Linux kernel reveals that open source communities rarely operate through pure horizontal coordination. Instead, multiple authoritative structures coexist: autocratic clearing for critical subsystems, oligarchic recursion among trusted maintainers, federated self-governance across components, and meritocratic idea-testing for contributions. This governance plurality enables efficiency while distributing authority in ways that prevent complete capture by any single actor.​

The choice between copyleft and permissive licensing represents perhaps the most consequential governance decision for sovereignty versus dominance

The choice between copyleft and permissive licensing represents perhaps the most consequential governance decision for sovereignty versus dominance. Copyleft licenses like the GNU General Public License require that modifications remain open, creating what Richard Stallman describes as a protected commons that cannot be enclosed through proprietary derivatives. This legal architecture prioritizes long-term sovereignty over short-term adoption by preventing corporations from taking without giving back.​ Permissive licenses like MIT and Apache, conversely, maximize adoption by imposing minimal restrictions. Proponents argue this approach creates more open source code by reducing friction for corporate contribution and enabling integration into proprietary products. However, critics note that permissive licensing facilitates the value extraction dynamics that undermine sovereignty. When Apple builds proprietary operating systems atop permissively-licensed BSD code, the improvements remain locked away, asymmetrically benefiting the corporation at the commons’ expense.​ The copyleft versus permissive debate illuminates a fundamental trade-off. Copyleft protects sovereignty by legally mandating reciprocity but potentially limits adoption among entities unwilling to share. Permissive licenses maximize reach and adoption but provide no structural protection against enclosure and exploitation. As one practitioner observed, “permissive licenses create public goods; copyleft licenses create protected commons”. The choice between these models reflects deeper assumptions about whether sovereignty or dominance better serves the movement’s objectives​

Funding Realities

The economics of open source development expose further tensions between sovereignty and dominance frameworks. The primary motivation for open source adoption in 2025 is cost reduction, cited by 53 percent of organizations. While this financial calculus drives adoption and thus market share, it does not inherently support the sustainability of projects themselves. The chronic under-funding of critical infrastructure projects, highlighted by incidents like the Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL, demonstrates that dominance measured by usage does not translate into resources for maintenance and security.​ Traditional funding models struggle to support sovereignty-oriented development. Research grants from programs like the EU’s Horizon Europe or Next Generation Internet provide initial development resources but rarely enable long-term sustainability. As Brussels acknowledges, “supporting open source communities solely through research and innovation programmes is not sufficient for successful upscaling”. Projects that receive public funding often fail to transition from grant-dependent research efforts to self-sustaining ecosystems.​

Commercial open source models present alternative sustainability paths but introduce their own sovereignty complications

Commercial open source models present alternative sustainability paths but introduce their own sovereignty complications. The dual-licensing approach, where companies offer both open source and proprietary versions, enables revenue generation but creates an inherent conflict of interest. Companies must balance community development against the need to differentiate commercial offerings, often resulting in “open core” strategies that keep the most valuable features proprietary.​ Service-based models, where organizations provide support and consulting around open source software, align better with sovereignty principles by maintaining the complete openness of the codebase. Red Hat’s success with this approach demonstrates viability, but it requires significant organizational capacity and market position. For smaller projects and those in regions with limited commercial ecosystems, service models remain difficult to execute.​ The Sovereign Tech Fund in Germany and similar initiatives represent emerging approaches that explicitly link funding to sovereignty objectives. By providing resources for the maintenance of critical open source infrastructure based on strategic importance rather than market signals, these programs attempt to align financial sustainability with public interest. However, such initiatives remain modest in scale relative to the infrastructure they aim to support.​

The Global South and Technological Capacity

The sovereignty versus dominance question takes on particular urgency when examined from the perspective of the Global South. Nations facing severe resource constraints and limited access to technology development capacity confront a stark choice: accept dependence on external platforms or invest scarce resources in building indigenous capabilities.​ China’s open source strategy illustrates how sovereignty concerns reshape technological development in non-Western contexts. Faced with hardware restrictions through United States export controls, China has aggressively invested in open source software as a pathway to continued innovation. The deployment of powerful open models like Qwen and DeepSeek as vehicles for technological diplomacy throughout BRICS nations and the wider Global South represents a sovereignty-first approach that uses open source to build spheres of technological influence.journals.​ Yet this strategy simultaneously reveals the limitations of code availability as sovereignty. As South African policymakers observe, “real power lies not in extraction but in value creation”. Access to open source code provides necessary but insufficient conditions for sovereignty. Without local capacity to understand, modify, and maintain complex systems, even open source can become a form of dependence. The digital divide extends beyond access to encompass capabilities, infrastructure, and the institutional capacity to participate meaningfully in global technology development.​

Without local capacity to understand, modify, and maintain complex systems, even open source can become a form of dependence

Africa’s approach to technological sovereignty emphasizes necessity-driven innovation emerging from resource constraints rather than adoption of existing solutions. This model suggests that sovereignty may require fundamentally different development paths than those pursued in resource-rich contexts. The focus on digital public infrastructure, local data governance, and indigenous platform development reflects recognition that sovereignty cannot be imported but must be cultivated through investment in education, research capacity, and institutional development.​

Fragmentation Risks

The pursuit of dominance relies heavily on network effects, the dynamic where a product becomes more valuable as more users adopt it. Open source benefits from network effects in developer communities, where larger contributor bases typically correlate with faster innovation and more robust quality assurance. However, network effects can also consolidate power in ways antithetical to sovereignty. The concentration of open-source development on platforms like GitHub creates a mono-culture that amplifies platform owner influence. When a single company controls the primary infrastructure for collaboration, it gains the capacity to shape practices, extract data, and set terms that may conflict with community interests. The purchase of GitHub by Microsoft, while not eliminating the openness of hosted code, centralized control over collaboration infrastructure in ways that create structural dependencies.​

The purchase of GitHub by Microsoft, while not eliminating the openness of hosted code, centralized control over collaboration infrastructure in ways that create structural dependencies.​

Fragmentation presents the inverse risk. The proliferation of incompatible governance models, licensing schemes, and technical standards can undermine both sovereignty and dominance by dissipating community energy across redundant efforts. When projects fork due to governance disputes or license incompatibilities, network effects fragment rather than compound. The history of UNIX demonstrates how excessive fragmentation can transform initial dominance into marginal relevance.​ Effective sovereignty may require accepting some degree of fragmentation as the price of distributed control. The internet itself was built on principles of decentralized governance and protocol-based interoperability rather than centralized coordination. Applying similar principles to open source ecosystems could enable sovereignty through federated networks of communities rather than monolithic platforms. However, this approach sacrifices certain efficiency gains that come from standardization and centralized coordination​

The European Model

The European Union’s evolving approach to open source provides perhaps the most sophisticated attempt to synthesize sovereignty and adoption objectives. The 2025 World of Open Source Europe Report identifies open source as simultaneously a vehicle for innovation and a foundation for digital sovereignty, explicitly linking these goals. This framing suggests that sovereignty and widespread adoption need not be mutually exclusive but can reinforce each other when properly structured.​

The 2025 World of Open Source Europe Report identifies open source as simultaneously a vehicle for innovation and a foundation for digital sovereignty, explicitly linking these goals.

The European strategy emphasizes several key principles: maintaining complete openness rather than open core models, promoting collaborative development across borders while preserving European control over critical infrastructure, and using public procurement to support sustainable business models. The proposed approach combines regulatory frameworks like the Cyber Resilience Act with financial support mechanisms and governance infrastructure through Open Source Program Offices.​ This model faces significant implementation challenges. As the State of Digital Sovereignty in Europe survey reveals, regulatory frameworks alone prove insufficient without accompanying operational tools, procurement reforms, and financial incentives that prioritize sovereignty. Organizations express strong support for sovereignty in principle but continue relying on United States-based platforms due to integration complexity, cost considerations, and the absence of mature European alternatives.​ The European approach also grapples with the inherent tension between openness and sovereignty. True open source, by definition, creates a global commons available to all without discrimination based on nationality or intended use. The Open Source Initiative’s definition explicitly prohibits licenses that discriminate against persons, groups, or fields of endeavor. This universality principle conflicts with sovereignty strategies that seek to preferentially benefit European actors or restrict access by geopolitical competitors.​ Some European initiatives attempt to navigate this tension through operational rather than licensing approaches. By focusing on where software is deployed, how data flows, and who maintains systems rather than restricting access to code, these strategies pursue sovereignty through architecture and governance rather than exclusion. However, this approach requires sustained institutional capacity and cannot prevent other actors from using European-developed open source for their own sovereignty objectives​

Creative Destruction…

The relationship between market structure and innovation provides crucial context for evaluating sovereignty versus dominance frameworks. Economic research demonstrates that technology monopolies face competing incentives. They possess resources to generate tremendous innovation but also motivation to suppress developments that threaten their market position. This dynamic of “captured innovation,” where monopolists develop but fail to deploy transformative technologies, emerges repeatedly in technology markets.​ Historical case studies of IBM, AT&T, and Google reveal that antitrust enforcement often precedes innovation blooms as captured technologies become available to markets. These patterns suggest that dominance by any entity, even one built on open source foundations, can impede innovation by creating barriers to experimental deployment of new capabilities. The tension between preserving profitable market structures and enabling disruptive experimentation affects open source platforms no differently than proprietary monopolies.​ From a sovereignty perspective, the capacity for independent innovation matters more than market position. A region or nation that achieves technological sovereignty gains the ability to experiment with alternative architectures, regulatory frameworks, and development models without permission from dominant platforms. This autonomy enables the kind of institutional innovation that produced the General Data Protection Regulation, a governance framework that has become a global reference point despite European companies holding minimal market power in digital platforms.​

A region or nation that achieves technological sovereignty gains the ability to experiment with alternative architectures, regulatory frameworks, and development models without permission from dominant platforms.

The sovereignty model potentially enables greater innovation diversity by supporting multiple parallel development paths rather than consolidating around platform monopolies. When different regions pursue technological sovereignty through distinct governance and technical choices, the global ecosystem benefits from experimentation across alternative models. However, this diversity also creates coordination challenges and potential for incompatibility that can fragment markets and dissipate network effects…

Ethical Foundations and Value Alignment

The free software movement, from which open source emerged, was founded on ethical principles regarding user freedom rather than strategic calculations about market share. Richard Stallman’s articulation of the four essential freedoms, to run, study, modify, and share software, frames software as a matter of liberty rather than economic efficiency. This ethical foundation prioritizes sovereignty over dominance by emphasizing user autonomy as the paramount value.​

This ethical foundation prioritizes sovereignty over dominance by emphasizing user autonomy as the paramount value!

The 1998 split that created the “open source” label alongside the existing “free software” terminology reflected precisely the tension between ethical and pragmatic frameworks. Open-source proponents emphasized practical benefits to business and technical communities, deliberately moving away from the confrontational ethical framing that emphasized freedom and justice. This strategic repositioning enabled wider corporate adoption but diluted the movement’s ethical clarity about whose interests software should primarily serve.​The resurgence of sovereignty language in contemporary open source discourse represents a partial return to ethical foundations, now articulated through the lens of collective rather than individual autonomy. When the Berlin Declaration on Digital Sovereignty emphasizes “the ability to act autonomously and freely choose one’s own solutions”, it echoes Stallman’s focus on freedom while shifting the unit of analysis from individual users to nations and communities.​ Ethical technology principles increasingly emphasize transparency, accountability, fairness, and alignment with democratic values. These principles map more naturally onto sovereignty frameworks, which emphasize control and auditability, than dominance frameworks focused on market penetration. As artificial intelligence systems raise profound questions about algorithmic governance and accountability, the capacity to audit, modify and locally govern technological systems becomes inseparable from fundamental rights protection.​

Platform Capitalism and Co-operative Alternatives

The emergence of platform capitalism, where digital platforms become sites of value extraction and accumulation, has fundamentally altered the open source landscape. Major technology corporations have become sophisticated at monetizing open-source software through cloud services, proprietary integrations, and data collection while contributing minimally to underlying projects. This dynamic transforms collaborative commons into substrates for capitalist accumulation.​ Blockchain and decentralized technologies present themselves as alternatives to platform capitalism, promising sovereignty through cryptographic protocols and distributed governance. However, the reality has proven more complex. While blockchain eliminates certain forms of centralized control, it introduces new coordination costs, governance challenges and often recreates concentration through different mechanisms like mining power or token ownership. The technology itself does not guarantee decentralization of power or preservation of commons.​

Platform co-operativism offers another model, emphasizing ownership and governance structures that align with commons principles rather than extractive capitalism

Platform co-operativism offers another model, emphasizing ownership and governance structures that align with commons principles rather than extractive capitalism. Examples like Mastodon in social media or Open Food Network in agriculture demonstrate how co-operative governance can support open source ecosystems while preventing capture by capital. However, these alternatives struggle to achieve scale sufficient to displace entrenched platforms, highlighting the difficulty of pursuing sovereignty without accepting reduced reach.​

The fundamental challenge involves the structural relationship between capitalism and commons. As long as the primary funding sources for open source development come from corporations seeking competitive advantage or market dominance, the movement’s capacity to prioritize sovereignty over commercial interests remains constrained. Alternative funding models, whether public investment, co-operative structures, or novel mechanisms like protocol-level value capture, require experimentation and institutional innovation beyond software development itself.

Alternative funding models, whether public investment, co-operative structures, or novel mechanisms like protocol-level value capture, require experimentation and institutional innovation beyond software development itself

Toward a Synthesis: Sovereignty Through Strategic Adoption

The sovereignty versus dominance framing, while analytically useful, may ultimately present a false dichotomy. Effective sovereignty likely requires substantial adoption to generate the ecosystem effects, contributor networks, and institutional support necessary for long-term sustainability. Conversely, dominance that merely replicates proprietary platform dynamics serves neither the movement’s ethical foundations nor its practical objectives of creating freely available technological infrastructure. A synthesis approach might prioritize sovereignty as the organizing principle while pursuing strategic adoption that supports rather than undermines autonomy. This framework would evaluate adoption not merely by market share metrics but by distribution across diverse communities, robustness of governance structures, and resistance to capture by any single actor. Success would be measured by the number of entities achieving meaningful technological sovereignty rather than total installations or cloud revenue. This approach requires explicit mechanisms to prevent value extraction and ensure reciprocity. Copyleft licensing, contribution requirements for commercial users, and governance structures that distribute authority all serve to maintain sovereignty even as adoption expands. The challenge involves designing these mechanisms to preserve commons while remaining attractive enough to generate the critical mass necessary for sustainability.

The Sovereign Tech Fund, EU research programs, and similar initiatives represent recognition that market mechanisms alone will not produce sovereignty-aligned outcomes.

Public investment emerges as crucial infrastructure for sovereignty-oriented development. Just as highways and telecommunications required public investment due to their public good characteristics, digital infrastructure increasingly requires collective action to develop and maintain. The Sovereign Tech Fund, EU research programs, and similar initiatives represent recognition that market mechanisms alone will not produce sovereignty-aligned outcomes.​ Regional cooperation, particularly between Europe and the Global South, could enable sovereignty without isolation. By pooling resources, sharing governance models, and jointly developing capabilities, regions can achieve sovereignty through trusted interdependence rather than autarky This model would create an alternative to dependence on dominant technology corporations while maintaining the benefits of scale and network effects.​

Conclusion

Ultimately, the question of whether open source should pursue sovereignty or dominance transcends technical and economic considerations to engage fundamental questions about democracy and self-governance in an increasingly digital world. When critical infrastructure, from healthcare to financial services to government operations, depends on software systems, control over those systems becomes inseparable from political autonomy. The concentration of technological power in a small number of corporations and nation-states creates unprecedented risks to democratic governance. Surveillance capitalism, algorithmic manipulation and the weaponization of digital platforms threaten the conditions necessary for democratic deliberation and collective decision-making. Open-source offers a potential counterweight, but only if structured to support sovereignty rather than merely accelerating the dominance of platforms that deploy it strategically.

The choice facing the open source movement is not whether to pursue technological excellence or widespread adoption

The choice facing the open source movement is not whether to pursue technological excellence or widespread adoption. These remain essential objectives. Rather, the fundamental question involves whose interests the movement ultimately serves. A dominance-oriented movement enables innovation and economic value but risks becoming infrastructure for continued concentration of technological power. A sovereignty-oriented movement supports autonomy and democratic control but requires sustained commitment to governance structures, funding models, and licensing choices that may sacrifice rapid growth for long-term resilience. The movement’s response to this choice will shape not merely the software landscape but the fundamental architecture of power in digital societies. As artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other transformative technologies emerge, the question of who controls the foundational infrastructure becomes increasingly consequential. Open source, structured toward sovereignty, offers a pathway toward distributed technological capacity and meaningful self-determination. Alternatively, open source optimized purely for dominance risks becoming another mechanism through which power concentrates rather than distributes. The path forward requires uncomfortable clarity about priorities and the courage to structure institutions, licensing, and funding accordingly. It demands recognition that sovereignty and dominance, while occasionally aligned, frequently diverge in ways that force difficult choices. Most importantly, it necessitates sustained commitment to the ethical foundations that inspired the movement: that technology should empower rather than subjugate, liberate rather than constrain, and distribute rather than concentrate control over our collective digital future. Only by prioritizing sovereignty as the organizing principle, while pursuing adoption in service of that sovereignty, can the open source movement fulfill its transformative potential as infrastructure for democratic technological self-determination in the twenty-first century.

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