In recent years, the concept of digital sovereignty has become increasingly relevant in Europe. Concerns about privacy, security, and a host of other factors have led the European Union to focus on its ability to act more self-determined in the digital world.
Europe is looking to maintain control over its digital infrastructure and data, and dataspaces have emerged as a crucial part of this effort. That’s why we’re excited to announce a new working group, Eclipse Dataspace, that will work to develop and promote open source solutions that enable the development of and easy participation in dataspaces.
Dataspaces are the total set of interoperable data-sharing mechanisms by organisations, individuals and groups in a given domain or sector. They enable new business models where multiple players can aggregate their data for their own benefit and create a trusted means of data exchange that is decentralised, egalitarian, and secure.
We believe that open source has an important role to play in building this new reality for data sharing. The Eclipse Dataspace Working Group will provide an open forum for the development of software, specifications, and collaboration models needed to support industry-ready dataspaces.
The working group will aim to support a wide-ranging ecosystem of interoperable dataspaces through the development of specifications and by associating with existing open source projects, like Eclipse Dataspace Components. The collaboration will also support new projects, onboarding in three main areas: Dataspace Core & Protocols (DCP), Dataspace Data Planes & Components (DDPC), and Dataspace Authority & Management (DAM).
The working group will collaborate with several existing organisations involved in dataspaces, the International Data Spaces Association, iSHARE Foundation and Catena-X.
Eclipse Dataspace members are showing a commitment to building connected, interoperable dataspaces that are viable for businesses of various sizes across several industries. Joining this collaboration is a unique opportunity to help shape the future of technology development in Europe, and make significant progress towards digital sovereignty. Founding members include Amadeus, Bosch, Fraunhofer, IDSA, iShare, Microsoft, and T-Systems.
To learn more about the Eclipse Dataspace Working Group and how you can help drive the future of dataspaces, visit dataspace.eclipse.org.
