Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#461

Post by dathinab » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

gspr wrote: post #437

ardy42 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Up here in Scandinavia, we often laugh at how much Germans interact with humans, send letters and faxes, and make phonecalls in their business lives. They are woefully far behind. From what I understand the same is true for the south. I wouldn't necessarily call it "being ahead" to embrace increased isolation from other human beings.

> I wouldn't necessarily call it "being ahead" to embrace increased isolation from other human beings. Yeah, sorry, I wasn't clear. I was referring to stuff like this in GP's comment: > Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! I personally love human interactions, but the ide…

It should be noted that FAZ is not a tech news paper but a local to Frankfurt one. So the article was written by a person having closer to no tech understanding for persons without tech understandings. There are proper tech news paper in which you will not find such thinks. ;).

Edit: They do have a technical section but that is 70% cars and the rest are other physical tech thinks like kitchen utensils and vacuum robots.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#462

Post by hackissimo123 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #426

hackissimo123 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the residents of Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and the entirety of central and eastern Europe (except Romania) would be surprised to hear that they don't speak a Latin language.

German might not be a Latin language, but has very obvious roots there. Which are btw. more apparent than in English, because the grammar has not been simplified yet. I suspect the way to learn both languages is not that different. It also has to be way easier if you already know a similiar language, which was my point.

I speak five European languages including German. What you say is the opposite of the truth - English has far more Latin influence than German. By one estimate around a third of English words are derived from Latin (via Norman French, thanks to the Norman conquest of Britain in the 11th century.) German doesn't have nearly as many Latin words.

It's true that German and Latin both have case systems (accusative, nominative, etc.), but German didn't get this from Latin - they both inherited it independently from proto-Indo-European, their common ancestor. English used to have a case system too but it's been lost.

With that being said, my original post had a stupid mistake: I meant to imply that the listed countries don't speak a Latin language, not that they do.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#463

Post by dathinab » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

f6v wrote: post #270

gspr wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the two first points are more specific to Germany than to the old world as a whole. Up here in Scandinavia, we often laugh at how much Germans interact with humans, send letters and faxes, and make phonecalls in their business lives. They are woefully far behind. From what I understand the same is true for the south. While I agree with the basic premise of the last point too I think you maybe underestimate th…

Milage varies in Europe. In Germany, opening a bank account "over internet" means sending paper letters back and forth, while in Belgium I didn't have to sign or send anything by post.

Na, you can do it all online for many Banks with some of the id check methods. It's just legally preferable for Banks to have a physical signed contract as there are a lot of responsibility on both parties sides so many Banks require you to sign and send them a contract. So it's not because they technically/legaly can't, it's just because they prefer not to for legal liability reasons.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#464

Post by dathinab » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

0x5002 wrote: post #245

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

Not to mention the culture at work. I've never experienced a more stuffy, hierarchical, and old-fashioned IT "industry" as I have in Germany. I've been hosting my server with a German company for years. They have recently opened a data center in Missouri - which would be great for latency (I'm in the southeastern US). So, I send an email to the effect of "Hey folks, could you please let me know if it's possible to mi…

Dear Mr. ..., is the direct transition for a common formal getting in Germany. Furthermore formal greetings are used for anything business related in Germany. Through that's getting less common with the younger generation.

So yes for a middle aged German speaker with non fluent English skills not using dear or omitting the "Mr" can seem that it maybe might be unprofessional or impolite so they will just add it.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#465

Post by Udik » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

Pedrit0 wrote: post #435

Udik wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree up to a point. I do think as well that there are the downsides you mentioned to the US business and social culture. But at the same time it produces a clear supremacy in a lot of sectors. We might be able to find a sweet European middle ground, but we need to start with the idea of learning from others, and learning is always a changing process. And I don't think that declaring your pride and love for who you…

> "And I don't think that declaring your pride and love for who you are is a good starting point for any kind of change." Lol. American do it constantly and it works for them.

They don't need to change from this point of view. And probably will never change for the others :)

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#466

Post by ur-whale » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

joelbluminator wrote: post #347

ur-whale wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? 1. Culture, tradition, apathy, risk-averseness 2. Regulations

So you're saying building an AWS equivalent is harder to do than building ASML? Again: if Europe could come up with ASML (which is just an example I'm familiar with, I assume there are successful companies), why can't it build in AWS equivalent? Which is even easier to do since the problem of scaling server instances is better understood and more intuitive than developing lithography machines like ASML is doing.

ASML is a tiny company compared to AMZN.

They are also the _one_ exception where a European company produces tech that's number one worldwide and near impossible to match.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#467

Post by joelbluminator » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

guiriduro wrote: post #396

viraptor wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? Years of experience running their own massive platform before entering the market of renting those services to others? > they can definitely build software So can OVH and Rackspace. So why would this project take off better than those established companies? Don't get me wrong, I'll be cheering this to succeed, but how is this effort different?

If I rememberm AWS CTO is dutch. Throw €100bn in a tech fund and poach him or someone like him, give them free reign, done. Poverty of imagination and obsessive financial conservatism and control freakery from the euro investment community is the real problem, not lack of talent.

I'd be surprised if a decent AWS equivalent can't be built in 10-15B. That should be enough to hire good people and buy infrastructure. How do you figure 100B? It doesn't have to serve AWS traffic from day one...

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#468

Post by joelbluminator » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #466

joelbluminator wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying building an AWS equivalent is harder to do than building ASML? Again: if Europe could come up with ASML (which is just an example I'm familiar with, I assume there are successful companies), why can't it build in AWS equivalent? Which is even easier to do since the problem of scaling server instances is better understood and more intuitive than developing lithography machines like ASML is doing.

ASML is a tiny company compared to AMZN. They are also the _one_ exception where a European company produces tech that's number one worldwide and near impossible to match.

You're comparing to Amazon the company, the whole e-commerce business unit which is huge. AWS is big but I don't know how big; competition is fierce. They were there first but other companies are catching up.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#469

Post by wikibob » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

maelito wrote: post #381

Nextgrid wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are very capable and smart engineers in France I would not be so sure. I looked at the IT salaries there (both as a permanent and as a contractor) and it just doesn’t make sense to stay there when you could earn way more money elsewhere in Europe.

I can assure you that with my salary, working as a Web developer for the french government, it makes a lot of sense to stay in France.

How much is your salary? How much is your tax rate? And your contribution sociale?

What are your monthly expenses?

One reason EU salaries are so low is that everyone is afraid of discussing their salaries.

In the USA there is levels.fyi with widely validated salaries.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#470

Post by dathinab » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #409

stakkur wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European startup tech companies with valuations >= $1 Billion: * Klarna (Sweden)(online payments) * N26 (Germany) (mobile banking) * BlaBlaCar (France) (Ride sharing) * Vinted (Lithuania) (ecommerce) * Acronis (Switzerland) (backup/recovery) * Glovo (Spain) (delivery) * Outsystems (Portugal) (enterprise app platform) * Bolt (Estonia) * Veeam Software (Switzerland)(acquired, I think) There are more. There's a trillion…

Those companies are nice but their services are not available to all EU members whereas mist US tech companies operate in all states. Food for thought as to why EU companies can't grow.

Maybe because some of the more successful VC companies grow based on moralicly questionable practices and circumvention or outright breaking of laws and regulations.

Practices with which you can get away much less in the EU.

But this also means that US companies have a somewhat unfair competitive advantage on the global marked.

Combine that with the US having the first wave of big tech companies due to other circumstances and some other thinks and is not really surprising.

I mean look at FAANG:

- Facebook, repeatedly and frequently acted in bad fate wrt. to privacy, non us social issues and copyright protection. Lied to monopoly watchdogs.

- Amazon, know for taking advantage of workers (through had gotten better), know to not talk effective actions against massive counterfite good, know to use unfair competitive advantage for their own Amazon branded products, questionable privacy practices for user facing products like the fire ebook reader, knows to enable (not cause) environmental problem through mainly throwing away returned products, probably missed some points

- Apple, well less to say here except how it hinders/prevents repair shops while not returning thinks themselves (just replaced parts). Also there where repeatedly bag reports about the workers condition in the factories whey Apple products where produced, but that probably applies to most tech hardware companiesway. Still the way they undermine the marked with vertical expansion is dangerous, but I don't know if it had already caused damages.

- Netflix, I don't know much about them tbh. Seems fine but I might be wrong.

- Google, repeated acts in bad face for user privacy. Had been good for the first half of their lives but now turned bad and might very well try to literally take over the internet (or what users price at it).

- YouTube (now part of Google) grew partially because of disregard for copyright and then forcing copyright holder into compromises with it.

- Uber, disregard for regulations for commercial public transport and labor law. Had been banned multiple times in some EU countries, now tend to operate under different terms in some EU countries then I'm the US. Had the same problems as the Taxi industry but sidesteps responsibility by putting it into the customer and drivers.

- AirBnb disregard for (the EU version of) zoning regulations and similar. Caused damages by implecitly constraint available and affordable apartment space in some EU cities. If heard estimates that a non small amount of AirBnb apartment providers are acting illigaley with the way they provide apartments in the EU, sadly non where reliable estimates.

But here is the thing both Apple and Google come from a time where a lot of things where just different. But now Google turned bad and Apple is increasingly becoming a latent danger for a fair marked. Meanwhile both Facebook and Amazon had been moralicly pretty bad from the start. Only Netflix seems fine but I don't know anything about it so, duh.