By carrying out all these initiative at the European level instead of only at national or regional levels, we hope that the interested critical mass of human resources related to open source development can be equivalent to that of the United States or any other area of the world. This critical mass should help to convert the good current technical level into products, companies and benefits for the society.
It is important to notice that open source software is easily available, with borders being of little importance, with a really low barrier for adoption, and with its results having a great degree of penetration within user and developer communities all around the world, given the enough quantity and quality of well trained human resources. From this point of view, the European critical mass will be just a part of the worldwide critical mass of people related to this technology, but very important for Europe, if we want to get all the benefits it can provide.