Open Matters Podcast

Open source won the server. It won the phone in your pocket. But it still hasn’t won the workplace: the documents, the spreadsheets, the slides.

Gerald Pfeifer has spent decades on the infrastructure side of that story. He has contributed to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) for 29 years and has sat on its steering committee since 1999. Most recently he was CTO at SUSE and chair of the openSUSE Board. This summer he left to go after the desk, creating Open Productivity. It’s a new joint venture of six of the companies behind openDesk, offering a secure, sovereign, open-source alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

We discuss:
– Why Linux and Kubernetes won by being better, not just by being open
– Why there’s no such thing as “the open source community”, and what there is instead
– How companies can engage with open-source projects without burning up on re-entry
– Why Gerald brought in Collabora rather than building in-house at SUSE
– How the shift to the browser changes the game for the desktop
– Resilience, vendor lock-in, and the only kind of lock-in Gerald likes
– Why he rates Collabora Online’s presentation editor well ahead of Microsoft 365 and Google Slides

Recorded shortly before Open Productivity’s launch. The website is now live: https://open-productivity.eu/en/home/

For Amnesty International Spain, digital sovereignty isn’t simply about procurement, compliance or where your servers happen to be. It’s about being able to keep working — whatever happens.

In this episode of Open Matters, Richard Brock speaks with Carlos Lopez Belenguer, IT Manager for Infrastructure at Amnesty International Spain, about why the organisation has spent more than a decade pursuing technological independence.

Carlos explains how Amnesty International Spain combines self-hosted infrastructure, open-source software and online services to support staff and thousands of activists — and why retaining control of its data and tools matters so much to an organisation that regularly challenges governments, companies and other powerful institutions.

We discuss what digital sovereignty actually means in practice; why open formats, portability and an exit plan matter; Amnesty International Spain’s long history with Collabora Online; and why organisations should still pay for professional support even when the software itself is open source. Carlos also shares what happened when one open-source supplier increased its price fivefold — and why being able to keep running the software gave Amnesty time to find an alternative.

🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on open-source tech!
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-matters-podcast/id1807042369
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4frqRzV9DsAC0HfJ3ewaeD
RSS: https://www.collaboraonline.com/feed/mp3/

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Collabora Productivity or its affiliates. The content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered official guidance or fact-checked technical documentation.

00:00 Why digital independence matters
01:03 Inside Amnesty International Spain’s IT
04:44 Why self-hosting matters
05:35 When powerful people want you quiet
07:14 Open source as a route to independence
09:08 Eight years with Collabora Online
13:57 What digital sovereignty really means
16:04 Why pay for open-source software?
19:06 When the price jumps 5×
22:08 The price of cloud convenience
25:12 How to take back control

What happens when you set off to build a sustainable business around open source software?

In this episode of Open Matters, Richard Brock speaks with Lucie Lesage from Jeci, the French company behind the open-source document management platform Pristy.

Lucie explains how Jeci grew from one developer providing Alfresco services into a team building its own open-source product. We discuss finding the first customers, selling software before every feature was finished, setting prices, earning trust, and learning to let other developers contribute to something that began as one person’s code.

We also explore why Jeci chose Collabora Online for document editing, how open source gives customers confidence that their software can continue even if a supplier disappears, and why “free software” does not mean software that costs nothing.

Topics include:

• Growing from services into a product company
• Winning and supporting the first customers
• Pricing open-source software
• Building Pristy on top of Alfresco
• Why Jeci chose Collabora Online
• Free as in freedom—not free of cost
• Open-source and French-first business principles
• Pristy Marchés and future product plans

🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on open-source tech!
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-matters-podcast/id1807042369
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4frqRzV9DsAC0HfJ3ewaeD
RSS: https://www.collaboraonline.com/feed/mp3/

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Collabora Productivity or its affiliates. The content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered official guidance or fact-checked technical documentation.

00:00 Intro
01:01 How did you first get into OSS?
01:53 How did that shape how you think about software today?
02:28 What is Jeci?
03:03 This wasn’t the original direction?
04:14 Are you a product or services company?
04:57 What was difficult about the early days?
05:28 What drove the change?
06:03 What was COVID like?
07:28 Is that when you discovered Collabora Online?
08:19 Did you consider alternatives?
09:12 Transitioning from a single developer to a team
10:09 How did you pitch the new idea?
12:11 Pricing difficulties
13:30 How to find customers?
15:35 How are things growing now?!
17:05 Free vs. freedom
20:16 Changes to Alfresco and Nuxeo
21:46 Lucie’s experience leading marketing
26:26 Is everything on-premise at Jeci?
27:23 Future plans!

Open source doesn’t grow through code alone — it also grows through communities. And communities are built when people meet, share ideas, and sometimes argue over coffee in conference hallways.

In this episode of Open Matters, Richard Brock speaks with Eirini Athanasopoulou from Nextcloud about the human side of open source: events, community, storytelling, and what it takes to bring distributed people together in real life.

Eirini shares her journey from literature and TEDx in Greece to organising international events at Nextcloud, including Enterprise Days, the Nextcloud Summit, and the Community Conference. We talk about why in-person events still matter, how open-source events differ from generic tech conferences, and why event management is “project management with a little bit of fun and magic.”

And yes — there is also a pizza disaster story.

🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on open-source tech!
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-matters-podcast/id1807042369
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4frqRzV9DsAC0HfJ3ewaeD
RSS: https://www.collaboraonline.com/feed/mp3/

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Collabora Productivity or its affiliates. The content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered official guidance or fact-checked technical documentation.

00:00 Intro
03:48 From Greece to Berlin
04:39 From volunteering to work
06:18 What are the different Nextcloud events?
09:02 What about hybrid/online events?
10:25 What are the numbers?
13:40 Why should we come?
15:27 Any amusing stories?
16:58 What keeps you awake before an event?
19:17 What does Richard enjoy about events?
21:28 How do you measure success?

Germany isn’t just talking about digital sovereignty — it’s building it.

🇩🇪 80,000+ users pilot scheme
🧩 8 vendors, one platform
🚀 Federal rollout coming in 2027

Inside ZenDiS and openDesk — and what it really takes to assemble a sovereign digital workplace with open source.

In this episode, Richard Brock is joined by Victor Moster (ZenDiS) and Thorsten Behrens (Collabora Productivity).

🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on open-source tech!
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-matters-podcast/id1807042369
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4frqRzV9DsAC0HfJ3ewaeD
RSS: https://www.collaboraonline.com/feed/mp3/

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Collabora Productivity or its affiliates. The content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered official guidance or fact-checked technical documentation.