OCX26 day 1 recap
Day 1 of Open Community Experience 2026 (OCX), hosted by the Eclipse Foundation in Brussels, brought together developers, solution architects, and industry leaders to explore how open source is shaping real-world systems across AI, automotive, tooling, compliance, and research.
From the opening keynotes to parallel sessions across all tracks, we focused on moving from ideas to implementation, with practical insights from the people building and maintaining the technology.
Key highlights:
State of the Union from Mike Milinkovich outlining the direction of the Eclipse Foundation open source ecosystem
Keynote by Ruth Buscombe on data-driven decision making, marginal gains, and performance under pressure. She drew parallels between Formula 1 and software systems where small improvements compound. The session focused on decision-making under pressure and working with imperfect data
Main track sessions with John Ellis, Wolfgang Gehring, and Luqman Saeed explored system-level challenges and cross-industry perspectives
Tooling track with Jonas Helming, Miro Spönemann, Jan Bicker, and Denis Ungemach focusing on developer workflows, productivity, and scalable tooling systems
AI track with Luca Bianchi, Shelley Lambert, and Haishi Bai, examining how AI systems move from experimentation into production environments
Automotive track with Naci Dai, Pierre-Yves Chibon, Abhishek Ananthram and Chulhee Lee addressing software-defined vehicles and system integration challenges
Compliance track with Lina Böcker, Tobie Langel, and Timo Perälä covering regulation, security, and governance in open source
Research track with Massimo Tisi, Anastasios Zafeiropoulos, Michael Behrisch and Robert Hilbrich exploring long-term sustainability and collaboration across open source ecosystems
Why it matters:
Across tracks, the same pattern emerges: systems are getting more complex, expectations are higher, and open source sits at the centre of it all. The conversations at OCX are less about future promises and more about how teams are actually building, scaling, and maintaining software today.
OCX26 takes place in Brussels, bringing together a global community working on open technologies across industries. If you're building or relying on open source systems, this is where those conversations happen.
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