The crucial importance of software platforms was highlighted by recent events both at the political level (e.g. renewed calls for digital data and operating system ”sovereignty”, following E. Snowden’s revelations) and at the business level (e.g. Android generated a new industry worth tens of billions of euros yearly). In the IoT, which is expected to generate business at very large scale, while threatening even more individual privacy, such aspects will be exacerbated. The need for an operating system like RIOT stems from this context, as outlined in this report.