Dries Buytaert Proposes Software Sovereignty Scale to Reframe EU Digital Policy Debate

Published on 10 February 2026, the scale ranks software from Grade A to Grade E based on whether it can be taken away through acquisition, relicensing, or shifts in ownership. At the top are copyleft open-source projects with distributed copyright ownership, including Drupal. At the bottom are proprietary systems fully controlled by vendors and subject to jurisdictional and commercial change.

The framework distinguishes between permissive and copyleft licensing models and evaluates relicensing risk based on copyright concentration. Dries Buytaert argues that open licensing provides permanent, irrevocable rights to use, modify, and maintain software independently of vendor strategy. In contrast, proprietary software and centrally controlled projects remain vulnerable to acquisition or policy shifts.

In the post, Dries recommends that the European Commission revise its Cloud Sovereignty Framework to give greater weight to open licensing and to distinguish between license types and copyright governance structures. He positions structural openness as foundational to digital sovereignty, arguing that vendor origin and jurisdiction are secondary to legally protected freedom of action.