The European Commission is investing €6 million in a new programme to support free and open-source software in the geospatial domain. The GeoCommons programme will grant funding directly to researchers and developers working on geospatial commons, marking the largest European investment to date in bottom-up development of geoinformation and geodetic technology commons.
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a partner in the international consortium delivering the programme, which is coordinated by Dutch foundation NLnet. The investment aims both to advance geospatial technology and to strengthen European competitiveness in the environmental and Earth Observation service industry.
“GeoCommons is truly a game-changer and will give a major boost to the whole ecosystem,” said Jeroen Ticheler, president of OSGeo, the largest global community of open-source geospatial experts. “We share one planet, and it makes perfect sense to also share and co-develop the tools to understand, map and manage that planet.”
GeoCommons will fund maintainers and contributors across the OSGeo project ecosystem and beyond, with grant recipients also receiving free professional services from domain experts. Details on applying will be published at nlnet.nl/geocommons.
OSGeo will connect the programme to the global open-source geospatial community – its projects, local chapters and annual FOSS4G conferences – extending its benefits worldwide.
GeoCommons will run until at least 2030, led by NLnet Foundation with 11 other partners across five countries, including Radically Open Security, Free Software Foundation Europe, NixOS and OW2, with additional support from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and Germany’s ifrOSS.
“This significant investment will contribute to increasing our digital autonomy in this domain,” said NLnet’s Michiel Leenaars, the project’s coordinator, noting that geospatial data is “extremely sensitive information” underpinning everyday logistics and public safety.
OGC’s Dr Joana Simoes called the investment “long overdue” and said her organization would run two Code Sprints and offer developer memberships as part of the programme.
Leenaars added that open-source tools offer “a viable way out of the stranglehold” some proprietary vendors hold over the geospatial ecosystem, replacing dependencies with commons anyone can use and adapt freely.
Beyond direct funding, GeoCommons will offer free professional services – including security audits, accessibility scans, technical writing, localization, UX design, performance optimization and governance support – to help funded projects scale and improve.
OSGeo joins GeoCommons Fund to strengthen global geospatial community | GIM International
