Our modern way of life depends on open source more than ever before. Public policy is tasked with establishing protections that support just these types of ecosystems. Yet these two key groups lack a common venue and understanding to ensure they are both successful. As governments worldwide draft rules affecting the world around us, the responsibility falls to all of us to bridge that gap or accept that the negative consequences of decisions made without benefit of high-trust dialogs.

This session provides practical frameworks for effective policy engagement, tailored to technical community members. You’ll better understand policymaker motivations and hear examples of using standards versus dynamic mechanisms like reference implementations and transparency may serve better. Drawing on examples from collaboration with NCSC-NL and working on precursor standards to ETSI 303 645, Beau will discuss collaboration in context of European cyber policy like the latest Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Open source proved that radical collaboration can build the internet; now we need to prove we can translate that model to shape the policies that govern it.