Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Does the US have free beer?!
It'd be a lot better if we did :)
European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
291–300 of 380 posts
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is that they are genuinely trying. I have been in contact with such people, and they are not idiots. They have government money that they want to spend wisely. And experts from private companies convince them that they can solve their problems. If the government employee was the expert, they would not have to contact the private companies in the first place. The private companies know that, and they abuse th…
I am sorry for good people genuinely trying. I understand that it is a hard problem to solve - but private companies chose their contractors and suppliers and as well facing similar issues. Somehow private companies are managing to evaluate results and found accountable persons while governments are known for being very undemanding customers. "We have tried hard, but failed" is still failure despite any good will. Go…
> but private companies
Two things:
* The government is often in the situation where they want to fund some effort, like R&D. Say China is way ahead of the US in drone technology, and the US wants to catch up because that's a risk (we see how drones are used in the military now). So someone will have money to spend on US companies who will do everything they can to get as much money as possible. How can the government employee know which company is abusing? First they are all abusing, and second they are all failing already (otherwise the government wouldn't be in this situation where they need to fund them). This is a very hard problem.
* When it is about buying e.g. an IT solution for the company, I have seen private companies fail just as much as governments. McKinsey and their friends do the same bullshit to everybody, be it government or private companies. Don't think that private companies don't waste money. It's just that when it is the government, it is transparent and we like to complain about the government.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brandon Eich resigned.
Due to discrimination and bullying. There goes freedom of expression out of the door. Fortunately that crazy ship has long sailed and nowadays he'd have enough support to resist and publicly voice his opinions without personal attacks.
No government official spoke up to have Brandon Eich fired, or bullied him or anything like that. His defenestration wasn't driven by government. Brandon Eich said some things, and the community around him judged those things and reacted to it. That's means that we're not talking about free speech any more. You have no right to speak and force other people to listen without social consequence, you do have a right to speak without the government retaliating. But other people are free to react to your speech as well, and to speak out in opposition to you.
A lawyer once described what you are calling Free Speech as merely "Protection of the First Speech." You believe that Brandon Eich should be able to speak (the first speech), but that the other people around him should not be able to say what they want in reaction to it (the second speech). Brandon Eich did say things without any government retaliation- and the people who worked at Mozilla didn't want to be associated with that, and so he chose to resign before the organization fell apart. Because those people around Mozilla have free speech rights as well, they are not forced to associate with Mozilla.
Similarly, a company choosing to fire an employee because of their speech is not really a free-speech issue. The company can fire you for pretty much any reason (at least in America- some countries have stronger worker protections), because they don't want to be associated with you any more. On the other hand, if a Government official suggests that you should be fired for something you said in your private life, then your free speech rights are being violated, even if the company does not fire you. It is only when the government gets involved that it becomes a Free Speech issue.
Obligatory XKCD to help you understand why you are wrong about what "Free Speech" means: https://xkcd.com/1357/
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#294Maybe they should start by outlawing Google Play Integrity then. This will immediately make FOSS Android phones more useful in Europe.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#295I consider much bigger problem dependence on foreign ecosystems and data storages. This is of course useful but I would consider much more efficient some kind of incentives to build domestic alternative to ms office cloud solution which basically run all corps.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Finland (where Linux comes from) is in the EU. There are also a few European linux distributions you may have heard of: e.g. Debian, SUSE, Ubuntu (UK), Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia, Knoppix, etc.
How is Linux related to Finland? Just because some of early contributors was born in Finland?
It was literally created by Torvalds (a Finn) while at the university of Helsinki (in Finland).
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#297I 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 early mantras of OSS included "free as in speech" and "free as in beer".
Those were mantras of the Free Software movement. The open source movement (despite creating a lot of free software) was never about the moral stance of software freedom, but the practical benefits
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Finland (where Linux comes from) is in the EU. There are also a few European linux distributions you may have heard of: e.g. Debian, SUSE, Ubuntu (UK), Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia, Knoppix, etc.
How is Linux related to Finland? Just because some of early contributors was born in Finland?
You mean the actual founder of Linux is from Finland, not just a contributor.
Also you're forgetting all the "US" companies with headquarters in Luxembourg or Ireland.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#299It’d be a shame if MS was compelled by the current US administration to shutdown EU users of CoPilot/365/whatever. Whole agencies within governments lose all of their data and can barely function. A move to alternatives is an imperative! I hope it works for them and stimulates their tech sector.
I don't think anybody understand how bad it really is. Forget about Greenland. Trump can say "give me Germany or I'll shutdown Azure ID" and we will have to give him Germany. At this point we are just praying that neither him or any of his hawks realize this.
Maybe not that bad, but it does definitely give the US a major advantage diplomatically
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm confused with the disconnect here, so you simultaneously believe that: - government decision making is corrupt/inefficient (they would not pick the best product, only the company that bribed them the most) AND - government directly funding software development would not suffer from the same issues with government being corrupt/inefficient?
> - government decision making is corrupt/inefficient (they would not pick the best product, only the company that bribed them the most) That's an strangly simple view. You think playing politics can only mean bribing them? > government directly funding software development would not suffer from the same issues with government being corrupt/inefficient? The public sector is not a single unified hivemind. There are mu…
You're talking past my criticism and haven't addressed the core logic flaw in your argument.
If government is competent enough to build its own software solutions (and these creations would be valuable enough that open sourcing them would create opportunities for startups in the private sector as you've claimed!)...then they are also competent enough to buy the correct software product from a European private company.
If they cannot be trusted to buy the right software for themselves without the process being corrupted, they sure as hell can't be trusted to BUILD that software from the ground up (a much harder task!).