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’

#481

Post by viraptor » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 12:22 AM UTC

twic wrote: post #303

viraptor wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech salaries in Europe really are a joke. Don't look at just the number. Once you consider the cost of living, health coverage, days off, sick days, long service leave, parental leave, and lots of other benefits, it's actually not that impressive. > easy immigration to US for Europeans "Europeans" don't exist. UK has drastically different immigration rules than Poland for example. > good affordable education Some…

Don't just look at the list of things not included either. Actually look at the numbers. A Silicon Valley total compensation can easily be double that in the UK. That pays for a lot of cost of living, healthcare, time off, etc. It actually is an impressive difference.

> A Silicon Valley total compensation can easily be double that in the UK.

Sure, but that's comparing one specific area known for tech, including many big players with a whole country. SV is not the US, like Canary Wharf is not the UK.

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

#482

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #436

> " a platform joining up cloud-hosting services from dozens of companies, allowing business to move their data freely" This is practically dead before it's created. The other platforms (AWS, GCP etc.) are hyperscale due to their useful integrated nature of building blocks. You're not going to get that with a bunch of random vendors. It's hard enough as it is for a large company to create a somewhat homogenous enviro…

> Are you going to have a single API (and perhaps console) where you say: I want a machine with specs X, image Y and parameters Z to do that and have the lower layers resolve it? Probably not.

Why not? Isn't Kubernetes already most of the way there? (I have only played with it very briefly, but it looks like it should solve this.

The workload is most likely a container anyways, mostly resolving the "image" issue, so the key parameters are CPU, storage and RAM. Ignoring dependencies between containers (e.g. you probably want your web app server and database to be colocated), for the simplest implementation, couldn't you simply create a Kubernetes cluster covering VMs from all providers?

It seems like an orchestrator that places your jobs is part of what the project tries to develop, according to https://www.heise.de/news/Bundeswirtschaftsminister-Gaia-X-a...

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

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Post by allendoerfer » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

hackissimo123 wrote: post #462

allendoerfer wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, nomina…

> 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.

I got that.

You are right, German is per definition not a latin language. You win 5 internet points, even though you still did not get the context of my original post, which is why you were downvoted.

> I speak five European languages including German. What you say is the opposite of the truth - English has far more Latin influence than German.

Nobody is interested in how many European languages I speak and it does not matter here, but I do speak German and English and have studied Latin. English might have more Latin words, but German feels way more like Latin than English does, because it is more structured and rule-based, has less exceptions (funnily enough because it has had less influence from French aka Latin).

It is not only about a case system, it's also gender of words, conjugation of verbs and the whole structure of sentences. English feels more linearly "one word comes after the other"-style, while German and Latin both rely more on rules and sentences can (or sometimes have to) be taken apart piece by piece. One thing they have in common is the ability to form long sentences with the predicate all the way at the end, making the listener remember the whole thing before finally getting the actual meaning.

Another important point is: You can mostly just read both Latin and German, because words are pronounced the same way they are written. We might pronounce some Latin words differently than they were originally prounounced, but since Italian behaves the same, we should be reasonably close.

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

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Post by Bayart » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #432

Bayart wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries have diminishing returns too. If you balance income and quality of life, if you can reach a certain point that's reasonable for you, it doesn't make sense at all to go through the trouble of moving. Anyway the US is really at the bottom of the list. Most people would prefer anywhere in Europe or at worse Canada and Australia.

>Anyway the US is really at the bottom of the list. Most people would prefer anywhere in Europe or at worse Canada and Australia. Too bad none of the immigration numbers bear this out. Friendly reminder that what you prefer does not necessarily generalize.

>Too bad none of the immigration numbers bear this out.

They do. The only country in Europe I can think of where the US is the favored destination is Germany.

Note that by « most people » I was implicitly referring to my people, and in a larger sense Europeans. Not humanity at large.

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

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Post by r7ueehhrhrh » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

Pedrit0 wrote: post #446

rswskg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a brit it is especially hilarious, they rail at american monopolies only to want to replace them with their german ones. Yawn, laugh at the failures.

Well in the EU we still have opportunities to fight against other's monopolies and try to impose ours. Which a single small country can't and, at the end, is expected to become vassal of the US or China. > laugh at the failures Talking about failures, there are so many in the UK right now that the Brits, rather than laughing, should first focus on their own internal issues, which by the way, are seriously impacting t…

>Well in the EU we still have opportunities to fight against other's monopolies and try to impose ours. Which a single small country can't...Except for Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc.

>Talking about failures, there are so many in the UK right nowThis is why it's good Britain got out sooner than later. Europe, especially France and Germany, can't handle the idea that their 'European way' of doing things hasn't kept pace with the times. It's easier for these people to attack those trying something new than to accept the possibility of change. At least catch up with SEA before taking cheap shots at the UK.

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

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Post by tomonocle » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #389

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…

>- When I tried to read or watch reviews about SaaS solutions for invoicing / bookkeeping for German companies, the first half of the review is usually spent trying to convince people that moving off paper-based invoices and folders to all-digital is a good idea in the first place. As a CTO of a leading company in this space in Germany, I have to absolutely agree. The technology we can bring to the table is years if…

I'm curious - do you target the small percentage of businesses that truly grok the benefits of a platform that advanced already, or do you try to convince laggards to catch up?

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

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Post by tomonocle » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 5:41 AM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #470

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 circumst…

This article describes the scale of the operations behind some of the superhosts on Airbnb - almost unbelievable, but the market will provide I guess! https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-scam-london

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

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Post by brnt » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

_Wintermute wrote: post #412

KineticLensman wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't comment on the UK / Germany comparison directly, but I still continue to be pleasingly surprised by the quality of access to functions provided by gov.uk. E.g. I recently renewed my passport wholly online, registered my car, checked that the Govt had a record of my car's MOT (roadworthyness) certificate, etc.

I never really appreciated gov.uk until I moved to France. Here nothing is online, you need to take days off work to stand in line and collect paperwork.

French bureaucracy is one of those things that totally lives up to the stereotype. Nothing has changed since Asterix' time.

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

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Post by brnt » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #400

t0mas88 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is ages ahead of Germany, but that's because Germany is very non-digital, not because the UK is so ahead. When I lived in the UK things like online banking, internet speeds (even in London) and 4G/5G coverage all felt a few years behind as well.

> all felt a few years behind as well A few years behind whom, though? Consumer banking in the UK is eons ahead of America, and the UK has had a very dynamic and competitive consumer phone sector for years.

US banking is possibly the most backward in all of the world. Even most (all?) of Africa has a leg up.

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

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Post by brnt » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 6:29 AM UTC

toohotatopic wrote: post #451

t0mas88 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is ages ahead of Germany, but that's because Germany is very non-digital, not because the UK is so ahead. When I lived in the UK things like online banking, internet speeds (even in London) and 4G/5G coverage all felt a few years behind as well.

In which way is banking behind? Within EU, you can transfer money for free. You can automate your monthly payments or let companies draw the money. What else is there to offer?

Try to get a French company (take its largest insurer for instance) to send a transfer to elsewhere in the EU. They'll insist on sending cheques (which can't be cached outside of France). I'm still waiting on my refund two years later.