Data Bene

Open Source Experience 2025

The conference logo for Open Source Experience, accompanied by the text '10 & 11 DECEMBER 2025 / Cité des Sciences - PARIS / Open source your IT solutions!'. Underneath, the logos for OW2 and Data Bene are shown.

The 2025 edition of the Open Source Experience (OSXP) took place on December 10th and 11th under the theme “Open Source, key to Europe’s strategic autonomy.” As you might expect, the focus was entirely on redefining Europe’s digital future as being driven by open source innovations across all technologies (including data management, cloud computing, and cybersecurity). This year, many of the talks were largely focused on the intersection between open source and AI technologies (in alignment with the focus the technology industry has had on AI in general, in 2025).

The event

The event lasted two days, featuring 90 exhibitors, 130 sessions, 150 speakers, and over 4,000 participants – a truly large-scale conference held at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris.

This particular venue was smaller than last year’s venue (Le Palais de Congrés) and the rooms we went to were all full as a result of being very small (about 20 or 30 seats or so at most).

The talk format

Presentations were given in both English and French. Interestingly, there were no “silent rooms” this year (where headphones are provided to each attendee). Not everyone enjoyed that format last year, but it was a useful one for following two talks, or switching between them depending on the content or questions.

Two of our team members were in attendance and had the opportunity to explore various exhibitors and event rooms spread across three floors. The talks lasted 20 minutes. While too short to delve into details, this format was excellent for discovering new technologies and piquing our interest at a glance.

The talk content

There were six tracks that talks were categorized by:

  • Economic models and governance for sustainable open strategies
  • Artificial intelligence and scientific computing for data analysis
  • Cloud architecture and virtualization for an autonomous future
  • Development - software innovation in action
  • Cybersecurity and the software production chain: Open Source as a foundation of trust
  • Collaborative tools and business applications: regaining digital autonomy

We found the topic of open source solutions within the public sector to be the most interesting. In particular, it was easy to see our reliance as a global society on the big five tech companies (GAFAM: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) has grown significantly in the past few years. Open source software is a direct solution for protecting our collective right to privacy in the digital age, which is exactly why conferences such as this are so important for the discovery of OSS alternatives and innovation that leads to further development within this sector.

Attendance

Attendance was particularly high from the very first day. We were delighted to have the opportunity to interact in person and meet our partners, especially OW2, which also organizes an annual Open Source event in June. (The call for presentations is open until February 14, 2026 – see the OW2Con’26 call for proposals here.)

Since the event was entirely focused on open source technologies, we were able to discuss with numerous participants topics such as PostgreSQL support, along with the challenges and organizational impacts for companies wishing to innovate and adopt PostgreSQL, against the backdrop of market demand to break free from proprietary software licensing constraints.

We also had the pleasure of meeting key players in open source hardware innovation, which resonates with our own R&D on RISC-V processors.

Many free software and open source projects were represented. Some examples include Nextcloud (a self-hosted cloud collaboration platform that we personally use for hosting here at Data Bene) and OpenTalk, a video-conferencing solution that is GDPR-compliant, operating within German data centers.

Closing thoughts

The event was successful and well-organized. The only thing that would have improved the experience would have been longer presentations to explore the various topics discussed in more depth. If you want to discover new open source projects, note that this event is also a great opportunity to freely exchange ideas on these topics.

The video replays for 2025 have not yet been published, but past conference recordings can be found on the official website, here.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed the event and hope to attend next year!