Open source collaboration sounds great in theory, but the journey from observer to active contributor, especially for a company seeking strategic business advantage, can feel complicated. How do you start, and more importantly, how do you gain influence in a massive ecosystem?
At the Eclipse Foundation, we witness this transformation daily. This is the story of how LKS Next, the technology and consulting company within the Mondragon Corporation, went from having zero positioning in the dataspace domain to becoming a recognised leader in Eclipse Tractus-X, one of the Foundation’s most active projects, in less than 18 months.
The Strategic Challenge: Entering the Dataspace Ecosystem
In 2024, LKS Next identified a powerful market signal: Dataspaces were becoming strategically critical for their clients. The company, which operates across digital transformation and advanced engineering, knew it needed to build expertise and ecosystem positioning in this new domain. The challenge was substantial.
The dataspace landscape was vast, and LKS Next lacked internal expertise.
Iñaki Paz, LKS Next Innovation project manager and his team began a rigorous period of research: attending events, studying architecture patterns, and exploring available technologies. Their search quickly led them to the Eclipse Foundation, which hosts the Eclipse Dataspace Working Group. The Foundation’s structure provides a neutral and well-governed home for collaboration, aligning with Europe’s strategy for digital sovereignty.
LKS Next quickly centered their focus on two core Eclipse projects:
- Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC): The essential open source building blocks for secure, interoperable connectors for trusted data sharing.
- Eclipse Tractus-X: The open source backbone of the Catena-X Data Ecosystem and other Manufacturing-X Ecosystems. Eclipse Tractus-X applies EDC technology at scale for industrial use cases like logistics optimisation, supply chain transparency, sustainability and others.
Eclipse Tractus-X stood out as a clear example of collaboration at the foundation, competition at the edges. It is consistently ranked among the top three projects at the Eclipse Foundation in terms of commits and active contributors, demonstrating strong community velocity.
The Journey: From Contributor to Project Lead
Joining such a large, active project is often intimidating, but LKS Next approached it with a clear strategy to contribute high-quality work and position themselves within the community.
The team’s rapid ascent demonstrates the power of meritocracy in action.
- August 2024: Mikel Garcia joined the Eclipse Tractus-X community as a contributor.
- October 2024: Carlos Diez joined the community.
- March 2025: Both Mikel Garcia and Carlos Diez became committers.
- December 2025: Mikel Garcia achieved the role of project lead, following Eclipse Tractus-X strategy to expand geographically to Spain's "Eclipse Tractus-X Base" where Mikel can support driving developer oriented topics locally.
In just over a year, the team, supported by other contributors including Borja Gomez, Iñaki Paz, Angel Yao, Alaitz Shan Ye and Joseba Alvaro, moved from complete newcomers to recognised leaders in the project.
“The most challenging part of this journey was the initial research and the internal decision to commit. There is so much information about Dataspaces. But once we identified the Eclipse ecosystem and the Eclipse Tractus-X project, the shift to active contribution was surprisingly straightforward. The community is structured to help you succeed.” – Iñaki Paz.
The project’s leadership quickly recognised the value of LKS Next's contributions:
"The community spirit, constant engagements at our office hours, plus their proactive contribution, were immediately high-quality and strategically valuable. They have adapted to our processes and played by the rules of the game since the beginning, and have even contributed back to support our open source code quality and development processes, making us more efficient and ensuring our products are better maintained. It is great to see that with such proactive contributors we can bring much value for our global community." – Mathias Moser.
Mathias Moser, Eclipse Tractus-X Project Lead, explained that, thanks to LKS Next, the project was able to establish its first official Eclipse Tractus-X Base.
"We are thankful for their support, especially when we want to organize events like our First Eclipse Tractus-X Hackathon, which was a success in the past February, allowing us to enable more & more developers for our community locally in Spain. Since our project works with data space solutions for supply chain use cases, and supply chains are global, we are looking forward to having more companies with the same spirit of LKS Next, representing us in other countries as Bases for Eclipse Tractus-X.” – Mathias Moser.
Mikel Garcia confirmed the personal and professional impact of contributing to Eclipse Tractus-X:
“Reaching Project Lead in a community as large and impactful as Eclipse Tractus-X is a deeply fulfilling milestone, but above all, it is a reflection of the incredible team around me. This achievement belongs to my colleagues; their support and shared dedication prove that when we do consistent, quality work together, the whole community moves forward.” – Mikel Garcia.
The Strategic Payoff
Today, LKS Next is not just following the dataspace ecosystem, they are helping shape it.
Their expertise and high visibility in the Eclipse Tractus-X community have strategically positioned LKS Next as a trusted provider of dataspace technologies. This collaborative effort, which started as exploration, has become a core, strategic business capability, enabling LKS Next to participate in multiple dataspace initiatives across Spain, Europe, and international ecosystems.
This story validates a fundamental truth of open source: contributing to shared components is not charity; it's strategy. Companies that allocate engineering resources to contribute meaningful work to a well-governed community gain far more than they give, including greater innovation and stronger ecosystem resilience.
The LKS Next trajectory proves that open source communities are not closed clubs, but open ecosystems waiting for contributors who bring commitment and expertise.
Your Path to Influence
The journey from observer to influencer in a high-impact ecosystem like Eclipse Tractus-X is clear and repeatable:
- Identify your strategic domain.
- Align internal resources and commit to contribution.
- Engage with the community and contribute high-quality work.
- Build trust and influence over time.
LKS Next’s success proves that it’s possible to go from zero to hero in community collaboration in a short timeframe. If you are exploring this path, the Eclipse Foundation is ready to help your company thrive in the community, just like LKS Next did.
