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European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

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Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#151

Post by cylemons »

tyre wrote: post #59
embedding-shape wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument here is that while the software can be open source, it matters less, if whatever the software does isn't actually an open standard? Wouldn't "being open source with own custom protocol" essentially be as open as "open source or not, but software implements open standards" anyways?

Especially for the use case they’re talking about. It makes sense to have open standards for something like filing taxes so many companies can compete. Having source code for the tax system itself is interesting, but I think the market for “run software for processing incoming taxes for polish citizens” is exactly one. Unless they expect pull requests, which could be fun, but as OSS maintainers know, it’s a ton of wo…

Maybe auditing companies can run their own tax servers?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#152

Post by meheleventyone »

Jgoauh wrote: post #144
jagged-chisel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … public good to be freely used, modified, and redistributed That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.” I do understand the potential for misinterpretation, but one could easily add “after paying for it” and those freedoms don’t change.

>That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.” what the hell does that mean

Something that costs you nothing versus a freedom.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#153

Post by lossyalgo »

tbrownaw wrote: post #122
jagged-chisel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … public good to be freely used, modified, and redistributed That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.” I do understand the potential for misinterpretation, but one could easily add “after paying for it” and those freedoms don’t change.

> That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.” It occurs to me that this is a rather US-centric analogy.

The current socio-political climate is actually making this analogy less US-centric by the day :(

edit: I'm specifically referring to people losing their jobs and similar retaliations due to being on the left, or making public statements that the current administration and supporters don't like.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#154

Post by pandemic_region »

igeligel_dev wrote: post #139
timvdalen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? If you're not interested in limited liability it's 85 euros to file for a company. If you do want limited liability, you have to visit a notary to found, but even that's only like 500 euros. Sure, you have to do your taxes every year and that's annoying, but it's not _that_ hard.

> you have to visit a notary to found Why is that even necessary in the first place? Thats what people hate about bureaucracy. Why can't we just submit a form somewhere from home and someone looks over it from a queue. In the meantime you are allowed to start your business already. Bad process here. No process is 100% times better. An async one with forgiveness is getting you 80% there.

What kind of business would you like to run that it needs to be established today and cannot wait a few weeks? There are many repercussions, social security and tax wise. Do you expect a government to keep up with a free-for-all form that creates companies ?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#155

Post by PeterStuer »

Xelbair wrote: post #17

We'll see how it goes this time. If they once again go for creating their own forks, instead of financing development of existing software then I'll know the initiative failed. Also imho their 'questions' mentioned in the comment kinda feel like they have answer baked in - like it's foregone conclusion. Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of…

I get your pain point, but the stated objective is "Sovereignty" so having a fully localized OSS ecosystem that is anchored (can't be bought or moved) and operates independent of outsider (US, China, Russia, ...) upstream is in that case non negotiable.

Whether the EU will ever produce the necessary public investment to achieve this remains an open question.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#156

Post by fleischhauf »

PeterStuer wrote: post #145

If the objective is "Sovereignty", as clearly stated in the context, then Open Source is potentially a good strategy, but in itself not sufficient. E.g. Switching from Windows Server to RHEL gives you an Open Source initiative, but leaves you (arguably less, but still) dependent on the US. For Open Source to work "Sovereign" you need to establish an local independent EU maintenance, development and distribution ecosy…

something like a European GitHub you mean? (didn't read the article)

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#157

Post by fsflover »

carlosjobim wrote: post #147
fsflover wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46552049

Do they have any paid consumer offerings, with consumer support?

I assume if you come with money, everything is possible. Also, you don't have to get support from the same company: There is no artificial monopoly in FLOSS unlike with proprietary software.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#158

Post by elric »

flowerthoughts wrote: post #27

I agree with others here that focusing your eyes on _using_ open source is, at least, an incomplete view of the problem. What we (European software engineers) have been arguing, is that software that is funded by public means, such as from universities or institutions, ought to be made fully public, including ability to tweak. Thinking that open source software will help solve your budget and/or political problem is…

Many projects made with government money are developed under the EUPL. Including some of the ones I've worked on. Oddly enough, they aren't available for download anywhere.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#159

Post by NoboruWataya »

rambambram wrote: post #86

The EU has Schleswig-Holstein (a German state) as an example; office software and email replaced by open source alternatives. Look overthere, I would say. But overthere is a politician who actually understands what he is talking about. I don't feel the need to provide governments/politicians with open source software who think like this: "open source – which is a public good to be freely used". Start understanding ho…

> By the way, don't come lazily asking for input. Go out proactively and find the answers yourself.

The EU very regularly asks for input on new policy initiatives, it's one of the better aspects of the legislative/policy-making process. They are asking citizens' opinions on a policy that will potentially affect them, if you tell them to f off and do it themselves then don't be surprised when you hate the policy that comes out of it.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#160

Post by alphager »

lynx97 wrote: post #104
flowerthoughts wrote: post #27

I agree with others here that focusing your eyes on _using_ open source is, at least, an incomplete view of the problem. What we (European software engineers) have been arguing, is that software that is funded by public means, such as from universities or institutions, ought to be made fully public, including ability to tweak. Thinking that open source software will help solve your budget and/or political problem is…

The EU definitely has no concept of "love". It was founded to make trade easier. All the fuzz about humane values and morals has been tacked on more or less recently, to keep up the support for it from the population. It is the literal wolf in sheep's clothing.

It was founded to make world war 3 impossible /through/ trade. By intertwining the economies of countries that considered each other hereditary enemies (Erbfeinde in German), it sought to make war too costly to consider. Humanitarian values are a core part of what became the EU.

That's one of the reasons the EU has had so many political problems with Hungary and Poland in the last decade: their drift to authoritarian forms of government (including weakening the judiciary in Poland) didn't impact trade at all. Nonetheless, it went against the humanitarian values.

I'm no EU fanboy (there's plenty to criticize), but regarding chat control and surveillance, it's important to see from which part of the EU institutions the push comes: the council. The council consists of the governments of the member states. It's not the big bad EU trying to force surveillance on the innocent countries; it's the governments trying to push domestically unpopular surveillance through the EU. The directly elected EU parliament has so far always prevented this push.

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