365 days of OpenChain Meridian 22: A recap of one year OpenChain in Central and Eastern Europe

Establishing a trusted software supply chain is critical in today’s interconnected technology landscape. For the past decade, the Linux Foundation’s OpenChain Project has worked to build trust in Open Source Software (OSS) by defining key industry standards. These include ISO/IEC 5230 (which defines the key requirements of a quality Open Source license compliance program) and ISO/IEC 18974 (which focuses on Open Source security assurance). Together, they provide companies with international benchmarks to assess their Open Source management processes.

While regional OpenChain user groups have been established in countries such as Germany, the UK, China, and Japan, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) remained underrepresented.
To address this gap, the OpenChain Meridian 22 working group was launched in September 2025. Co-founded and led by members of the Bosch Open Source Program Office (OSPO), the initiative is now celebrating its first anniversary. The group’s name references the 22nd Meridian East, which vertically traverses Europe from Finland to Greece, defining the geographical target area of the initiative.

Central and Eastern Europe has grown into a major hub for the global technology sector, characterized by steady growth and highly skilled professionals:

• Market expansion: The CEE IT market is on a steady growth trajectory, with projections reaching €392.7 billion by 2025 (Source: Natek, CEE Report 2026).
• ICT expertise: Poland, the largest market in the region, features a pool of over 778,000 ICT professionals (Source: https://alcor.com/it-outsourcing-to-eastern-europe-major-trends-insights/).
• Industrial alignment: The industrial sector of the Czech Republic accounts for 37% of the national economy (Source: https://www.czechia.eu/economy/ ).

For Bosch as a technology and engineering company, CEE is an important pillar of the software supply chain, as a large part of the software development, supplier collaboration, and procurement relies on partners, service providers, and engineering talent located within this region.

To establish a trusted CEE software supply chain, two members of the Bosch OSPO took on leadership roles within the newly formed working group: Vladimir Slavov, OSPO at Bosch, serves as the Co-Chair of the OpenChain Meridian 22 working group. Nikola Babadzhanov, Open Source Expert at the Bosch OSPO and Eclipse Apoapsis Committer, acts as the group's official OpenChain Ambassador.

By fostering this community, Bosch actively supports the development of a mature, secure, and compliant Open Source culture across the CEE software ecosystem. When local suppliers, software service providers, and partners adopt OpenChain standards, compliance and security risks in the software sourced by Bosch are reduced. A more secure regional supply chain directly contributes to the quality and security of products delivered to Bosch customers globally.

Over the past 12 months, the Open Chain Meridian 22 has built an active network spanning Poland, Romania, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, and other countries. Meeting every two months, the group has addressed several regional regulatory and technical topics. The group, for example, evaluated incoming European regulations, such as the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), the AI Act, and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), with insights from guest experts. Additionally, sessions focused on the practical application of OpenChain standards for software service providers, regional standardization activities in Finland, and public sector Open Source initiatives in Poland.

To build local awareness, members of the group presented at several security and Open Source events across the CEE region, namely BalCCon 2025 in Novi Sad, Serbia, BSides Ljubljana 2026 in Slovenia, and TuxCon 2026 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

A key highlight of the first year was the group’s active participation at the Open Source Summit Europe (OSSEU) in October 2026 in Prague.

Vladimir Slavov and Nikola Babadzhanov delivered a joint presentation summarizing the group's first-year milestones and outlining future strategies for OSS compliance and security in CEE.

Additionally, the Bosch team co-organized the OpenChain x OSPOlogy fringe event in Prague on October 6, 2026, hosted at the Deloitte offices. This meeting brought together industry representatives and Open Source experts to discuss Open Source governance, supply chain security, and risk readiness prior to the start of the main summit.

The group's schedule for the upcoming year is already highly active, featuring a series of key events and initiatives:

• The FOSS-LÄND x OpenChain (March 22-24, 2027 | Stuttgart, Germany): In-person community event focused on Open Source software supply chain management, compliance, and collaboration. The event gathers people working with Open Source across different industries.
• Local community collaboration: Plan to co-host further localized OpenChain events in various CEE countries throughout 2027 to strengthen regional partnerships.

The OpenChain Meridian 22 working group is open to all interested parties, including corporations, public administrations, individual developers, and software service providers.

• Meeting schedule: Virtual meetings take place every two months on the first Monday of the respective month.
• Official resources: OpenChain Meridian 22 Website