Nextcloud CEO: Open source moves from ‘a nerdy audience’ to the geopolitical stage
MUNICH — Amid trans-Atlantic political and trade tensions, digital sovereignty — once a relatively niche concern — has jumped to the top of the agenda for European organizations wary of their reliance on US technology suppliers. For many, including European Union policy makers, increased use of open source software is a key part of the answer, offering an alternative to proprietary platforms from a handful of large US vendors. That’s the view of Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud, the German software vendor that bills itself as an open-source alternative to software suites from the likes of Microsoft and Google. Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek speaking at the German software company’s Nextcloud Summit 2026. Nextcloud Karlitschek founded the company in 2016, forking OwnCloud’s open-source file-sharing software. Since then, Nextcloud has expanded its products to include a range of productivity and collaboration tools that organizations can install and run on their own servers or