APELL welcomes ESOP of Portugal as an Associate Member

PRESS RELEASE 11/02/2021

APELL expands at an important time for open source companies in Europe

Brussels, Belgium — Europe’s Open Source Business Association APELL has added another member organisation to its ranks. ESOP (Associação De Empresas De Software Open Source Portuguesas) of Portugal has become an associate member of the Europe-wide umbrella organisation at the time of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Eduardo Taborda, President of ESOP, stated, in view of European developments such as the focus on Digital Sovereignty, Gaia-X and the NextGenerationEU recovery funds, that:

“It is crucial for the open source industry to have a voice in the political conversation. Other than that, looking at the current Portuguese Council Presidency, the engagement of ESOP might represent an opportunity to bring Portugal closer to OSS-related issues, through the perspective of its national businesses”.

APELL co-founder Timo Väliharju of the Finnish Centre for Open Systems and Solutions welcomed ESOP:

“The open source industry should be directly involved in the discussions related to both the upcoming Data Act and the revision of the European Interoperability Framework, to name a few. We are happy to have Portugal represented in APELL at this important juncture”

With the Portuguese Government’s upcoming charter of digital rights, the European Commission’s new Open Source Software Strategy published last year and the Commission’s Open Source Economic Impact Study results soon to be published, the time to further strengthen APELL’s representation could hardly be better.

For more information contact:

  • Eduardo Taborda, President, ESOP
    eduardo.taborda@esop.pt
  • Astor Nummelin Carlberg, Executive board member, APELL
    apell@apell.info

About ESOP:
ESOP (Associação De Empresas De Software Open Source Portuguesas) is an organization that represents Portuguese companies that are dedicated to the development of software and which provide services based on Open Source technologies. We integrate a set of reference companies with proven experience in national and international projects.

About APELL:
APELL (Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre) is Europe’s Open Source Business Association. Founded in 2020 to bring national Open Source Software organisations together into a European network to provide them with peer support and collective marketing, as well as capacity building and policy support for public affairs, both nationally and on the EU-level.

Download the APELL Press Release (PDF)

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