1. What the word means, and where it comes from
2. What dependence costs
3. What open source changes
4. What Europe is deciding this year
5. What you can do

Each lowered hand was a dependence. When people speak of managing them, they mean one of three things:

The levels are linked: one actor’s choice sets the next one’s constraints. Europe’s position is the sum of all these decisions.

1. “Open source by default” in the May draft became “encourage” (art. 41): cloud and AI only, wide exemptions, no audit
2. “Public money, public code” became a catalogue, if the code is published at all (art. 42)
3. No European preference; non-price criteria stay “ancillary and not decisive” (art. 32); implementation left to Member States, years away

• Know where your data live, and which services touch them
• Export everything once a year, and check you can open it
• Prefer open formats
• Report bugs, write documentation, translate

• Put leaving in the plan and the budget, starting with the link that lowered your hand
• Write reversibility into contracts: formats, notice, exit terms
• Fund what you depend on
• Join peers to buy and to fund together

• Contribute upstream
• Document each client’s chain
• Offer a European or self-hosted option for every link
• Make leaving easy: a client who could go and stays is won on merit

• The texts are being written now: “encourage” or “require” is decided this year
• Public buyers decide what the texts become
• Support those who push: join, sign, answer the consultations