Blog By Klaas-Pieter (K.P.) Majoor
A few days ago, I spoke at a couple of events to talk about something been close to my heart for years - open source and digital sovereignty. And as I looked back, it struck me how history keeps repeating itself. The more I discussed this with people, the clearer it became: this story runs in cycles.
Look back at the innovation waves of the past.
Each time technology concentrated too much power in too few hands, open source stepped in to rebalance it.
Now, we’re here again — right at the edge of the next big technological wave. Generative AI is used by more than 1.8 billion people every month, and 60% of adults have interacted with it in some way. It’s a wave growing faster than any before it - and yet, it’s nowhere near mainstream in the enterprise world.
Wasn't this the same with previous eras?
The investments are enormous, the expectations sky-high, and, again, the paradigm shift is extremely hard for enterprises. That is where we love to step in. We might even accelerate the paradigm shift using open source and Private AI...
If you look at the history of IT - from Mainframe, PC, and Networking, to Cloud/SaaS and now GenAI - there’s a pattern that keeps coming back. Each wave starts open and full of innovation. Then it grows, gets commercialized, and slowly closes off. And every single time, open source reappears to break it open again.
It’s almost predictable.
Whenever technology becomes too important to be controlled by a few, open source steps in. It’s surprising - but also comforting - to see history repeating itself.
Let's rewind for a moment.
Back then, open source was all about saving cost and bringing freedom of choice. Getting rid of vendor lock-in. Escape the closed vendor contract of Oracle, Unix, VMWare. Migrate to Linux, Container Platforms like Kubernetes. Move to open databases.
That was the game.
We loved it. It was rebellious, technical, and honestly... fun. We were the "Proprietary Killers" or "Legacy Liberators". We helped companies modernize their legacy IT by cutting licenses, taking control and speeding up software delivery. Open source migration was still tool-driven and minimal. Docker and Kubernetes were just getting started. Cloud Native was the buzz.
The motivation?
Saving money, speed-up delivery and gaining independence.
Now fast-forward to today.
Open source isn’t just smart - it’s strategic.
It’s about sovereignty, trust, and control. It’s not just technology anymore. It’s politics, security, and culture. When I talk with customers, the question isn’t “Can we use open source?” anymore. It’s: “How do we make sure our AI and data stay sovereign?”
I'm glad to share that, together with my fellow Tech Tribers, we have entered the era of Private AI and Open Platforms - a foundational path to digital independence, built on openness, transparency, and trust.
Projects like LF AI & Data, Hugging Face and open-source LLMs (LLaMA, Mistral, Qwen, Granite) are changing the game.They make it possible to run powerful AI privately - inside your own environment, with your own data.
Governments are picking it up too.
In the U.S., open AI models are being deployed across federal agencies.
In Europe, open source is seen as the foundation for digital autonomy - sparking new conversations about choice, independence, and trust.
The conversation has shifted from saving money to building Independence.
And that’s huge.
Now let's fast forward one more time, 10 years ahead.
2035 feels far away, but it might be closer than we think! If you have been around for a while then, do you actually remember what you were working on in 2015? Seems like two weeks ago? Sounds familiar :-).
Imagine how fast we will be in 2035. Open source will be default. AI will no longer just assist us - it will act and work with us.
We’ll see hybrid, private and agentic AI: systems that can privately reason, decide, and collaborate with others, agents or humans.
Once again, history repeats itself. Reasoning has been around for decades. With the rise of agentic AI it is expected to be heavily re-used in the AI-era. Proprietary vendors like OpenAI, Oracle, Google, Anthropic and Microsoft are competing for their share of the consumers.
Private AI will help us to keep our options open. We will still help opening up proprietary systems and migrate those to open platforms where they can deliver better software, faster.
At the same time, federated ecosystems will rise. Europe’s “Eurostack” will take shape. A distributed network of sovereign platforms - European, secure, and fair. Quantum tech will come into play. And guess what? The leading frameworks - Qiskit, PennyLane - are already open source.
From AI to quantum, the DNA of innovation stays the same: open, collaborative, human.
When I joined the open source movement, it was about breaking free - from lock-in, from black-box software that cannot be changed freely.
Today, it’s much more political. We're building better software, together - based on platforms we can trust, own, and pass on. Regardles of infrastructure, development and AI tools that will keep innovating at an accelerating pace. We need to keep our options open.
From 2015’s migrations, to 2025’s sovereignty, to 2035’s agency - one thing never changed: open source connects people who believe technology should serve humanity, not control it. That’s the essence of digital sovereignty. It’s not isolation. It’s collaboration with freedom of choice. It’s the ability to innovate without asking for permission. It’s knowing that our infrastructure, our AI, our data - are truly ours.
And yes, that’s exactly why I love this field. It’s not about tech for tech’s sake. It’s about craftsmanship, community, and control - in the best sense of the word.
We’re not done yet. In fact, we’re only just getting started on the themes of freedom and flexibility. The next decade will be wild - it will challenge our assumptions and push our limits.
But if we stay open, transparent, and human-first, we won’t just keep pace. We’ll shape the future together - on our own terms. With independence and flexibility at the core.