BRUSSELS and BERLIN, Sept. 30, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Eclipse Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source foundations, and Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN), the German Institute for Standardization, have announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on bridging the gaps between classical standardisation and open source software development in Germany and across the EU. This agreement represents one of the first collaborations between industrial standards bodies and open source software foundations, with a shared goal of empowering industry and business to confidently leverage and adopt open source technologies.
“Open source software has historically been the domain of enterprise software applications. However, in recent years, the open source model has been applied to large-scale deployments across various industries, including manufacturing, automotive, robotics, and more. These sectors heavily rely on industrial standards to ensure safe production,” said Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation. “As the leading open source foundation in the EU, particularly for many technologies focused on these industries, it makes perfect sense to work closely with DIN, the EU’s leading authority in building industrial standards.”
As Germany’s national organisation for standardisation and an ISO member, DIN is one of the world’s foremost authorities in creating industrial standards. Currently, there are more than thirty thousand DIN Standards, covering nearly every field of technology.
The MoU outlines a cooperative framework for promoting mutual interests in advancing standards for open source software. Key points include:
- Exchange of Knowledge: Sharing relevant information on standards and open source development, governance, and best practices.
- Research and Innovation Activities: Collaborating on projects, workshops, and publications related to standardisation and open source implementation.
- Promotion: Emphasising the importance of standards and open source development for fostering innovation, interoperability, and sustainability.
- Open Source Development: Facilitating the use of DIN's services and infrastructure for Eclipse projects and engaging in joint initiatives.
- Standardisation Contribution: Providing support and guidance for projects related to standardisation, including the Cyber Resilience Act.
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is one of the most significant regulatory developments in the area of cyber security within the European Union. This regulation aims to increase the security of products and services with digital components in order to significantly improve resilience to cyber threats. With the CRA (as well as the AI Act and the Data Act), the IT sector is now being regulated more strictly than before. These regulations define the basic requirements. The technical specification is made by harmonised standards, which are jointly developed by experts from business, science, the public sector, and civil society at the European standardisation organisations CEN and CENELEC.
The CRA now calls for the definition of specific protection goals for software and software systems. In the latest draft of the EU standardisation mandate, 41 areas were identified for this purpose. Participation and expertise from the open source sector is essential for the development of harmonised standards in the context of the CRA. As a strong partner, DIN will provide guidance and support, working together with the Eclipse Foundation to best reflect the perspective of the open source sector, a group strongly affected by the CRA.
“At DIN, we are seeing a significant rise in software applications shaping industrial processes and influencing technology across numerous industries,” said Christoph Winterhalter, CEO of DIN and Vice President Policy of ISO. “Today’s agreement marks an important first step in aligning the EU’s rapidly growing open source innovations with standardisation practices that will ensure broad industry adoption. Standardisation and open source can learn a lot from each other and, by exploiting synergies, ensure even greater trust and better interoperability in the future.”
Learn more at the Open Community Experience (OCX), a transformative open source developer conference from 22-24 October 2024 in Mainz, Germany. Visit the OCX website for details on sponsorship and participation.
About the Eclipse Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation provides our global community of individuals and organisations with a business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. We host the Eclipse IDE, Adoptium, Software Defined Vehicle, Jakarta EE, and over 415 open source projects, including runtimes, tools, specifications, and frameworks for cloud and edge applications, IoT, AI, automotive, systems engineering, open processor designs, and many others. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the Eclipse Foundation is an international non-profit association supported by over 360 members. Visit us at this year’s Open Community Experience (OCX) conference on 22-24 October 2024 in Mainz, Germany. To learn more, follow us on social media @EclipseFdn, LinkedIn, or visit eclipse.org.
About DIN
DIN, the German Institute for Standardisation, is the independent platform for standardisation in Germany and worldwide. Together with industry, scientific institutions, public authorities and civil society as a whole, DIN plays a major role in identifying future areas for standardization. By helping to shape the green and digital transformation, DIN makes an important contribution towards solving current challenges and enables new technologies, products and processes to establish themselves on the market and in society. More than 37,500 experts from industry, research, consumer protection and the public sector bring their expertise to work on standardization projects managed by DIN. The results of these efforts are market-oriented standards and specifications that promote global trade, encouraging rationalization, quality assurance and environmental protection as well as improving security and communication. For more information, go to www.din.de.
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