Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 380 posts

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#341

Post by c0ndu17 »

supermatt wrote: post #309
u8080 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not claiming "invention", my whole point here is that place of origin means nothing, especially for a FOSS project - despite Linus being important part of it. If we talk about OS being independent from US, the culprit is where does control(both in terms of technology and legislation) comes from. Main contributors are US companies(technological control) while Linus is obligated to comply to US laws and decisions…

Active kernel contributors are spread all around the world, with a pretty even distribution across USA, Western Europe and Asia. Your suggestion that the US government would lean on the citizenship of Torvalds in order to exert control over the kernel should be laughable but I concede that anything is possible these days.

Yeah, Nah, 0 chance.

Linus Torvalds, imo, is the reason we have open source, through Linux & Git. He’s the open source philosopher king.

I think he’s put enough in to know where his allegiance lies, over a 2010 US citizenship - a very different world.

There is also 0 chance, US/MS government hasn’t put a lot of pressure on him over the last 34 years of creating and spreading, at least the OS form of socialism

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#342

Post by pabs3 »

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…

FSFE campaign for that: https://publiccode.eu/

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#343

Post by zoeysmithe »

pembrook wrote: post #338
zoeysmithe wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesnt recognize many of the bodies you would use as enforcement against aggressive action on EU bought US products. Or for some it does, it gives itself immunity from them like the ICJ. Also considering the US's unilateral and often violent and aggressive and illegal way of doing things, especially with this administration, I think we're a bit past hypothetical meteor-like hypotheticals. At this point any usa…

Again, pulling Microsoft Office from the EU would be an extremely minor nuisance (libre office can open the same formats) at the expense of the US's national champion ever being used by any country outside the US ever again. This is never going to happen (killing Microsoft would not be seen favorably by anyone in the current or future administration) and even if this magically did happen, it would barely cause a blip…

Considering he's openly discussing annexing Greenland, we're a bit past dishonest "orange man bad" claims.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#344

Post by jenadine »

pandemic_region wrote: post #146
agentultra wrote: post #134

It’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.

In the same way Poetin accelerated the move from his own fossil fuels to renewable energy, Trump is accelerating the move to non-US based technology. At least in my surroundings, "non-US based company" is a big plus in the purchasing process.

They are accelerating from snail speed to turtle speed.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#345

Post by pas »

menaerus wrote: post #76
embedding-shape wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of OSS. I think at this point we're beyond that, we already have these programs and they seem to be expanding. EU-STF is one such example, then there are other organizations supported by the EU in various ways, that also helps fund OSS, like NLnet Foundation.

Do you honestly believe that all of these funding programs are beyond the point of "decency"? If we leave aside all of the bureaucratic bs, political connections and corruption when it comes to obtaining these funds (for the most cases), how do you attract experts in the field with 50k EUR grants?

50K EUR is OK to start. There's no point in trying to outspend the top private firms.

Like many other people said there are already thousands of unpaid volunteers doing quality work.

If the EU wants "domestic" stuff they need to mandate/incentivize it. It's not like if shit hits the fan the local employees cannot run the local stuff of non-EU companies. (Therefore the important thing is to have full control locally, no outside-EU kill switches allowed - eg. what Uber had and used.)

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#346

Post by pas »

greatgib wrote: post #24

Don't know if they will get valuable feedbacks but yes, what is needed as always is money. Ever by financing projects or buying solutions that would develop them. As said by someone else, not do the usual wasteful: - Create a big global project with a tender directed at bullshit consulting companies and big groups. - Giving millions/billions to recreate a crappy version of something instead of pushing existing soluti…

Yep. If the EU wants to direct money to this "problem" then they need to mandate that companies have a "domestic" fallback vendor.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#347

Post by mariusor »

menaerus wrote: post #49
juliangmp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a grant in 2023 which was supported by the European Comission. So I think the topic itself isn't entirely unknown. https://nlnet.nl/project/Forgejo/

From https://nlnet.nl/fediversity > We are seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euro's — which should get you on your way. Am I the only one to think this is completely ridiculous amount of money? So, you want me to leave my very well paid job to innovate for the sake of EU competitiveness but you don't to invest more than 50k EUR (max grant). And as an individual you don't even stand a chance so this 5…

I'm currently a participant under a NLNet grant. I'm unemployed at the moment so getting a trickle of 1-2K of donation money per month working on my passion project is a pretty decent proposition.

You can also be a participant alongside your well paid job, because once the memorandum of understanding is signed you have a year to work through the proposal at your own pace, during weekends or moonlighting.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#348

Post by menaerus »

palata wrote: post #333
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same thing that stops anyone from starting a new Google or Microsoft or Apple in the US, probably. And that's apparently not regulations. The reason why there is no other Google in the US currently is because for the average person Google works fine so if you go to a VC fund and ask for USD 100M to build the next Google, you are going to have to sell them on your vision and explain how you are going to do thing…

I don't think I could disagree more :-).

Sorry for being ignorant but in what universe do you live? It can't be more true than it (sadly) is. Everything what has been said is factual.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#349

Post by menaerus »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #334
palata wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why stay in Berlin or Paris where you can make 50K to 70K euros a year at most and pay close to 40% or 50% in taxes when you can make double or triple that in the US Have you ever talked to Europeans in your life?

Have you? I am a European business owner just FYI. I know very well how much taxes I am paying each month.

It always amazes me that there is a subset of EU people here on HN who are so detached from reality that it makes me wonder if these same people are sitting in Brussels board making decisions. According to the sh*thole in which EU ended up, it is not completely implausible. Can't agree more with what you're saying. My experience is the same.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#350

Post by menaerus »

pas wrote: post #345
menaerus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe that all of these funding programs are beyond the point of "decency"? If we leave aside all of the bureaucratic bs, political connections and corruption when it comes to obtaining these funds (for the most cases), how do you attract experts in the field with 50k EUR grants?

50K EUR is OK to start. There's no point in trying to outspend the top private firms. Like many other people said there are already thousands of unpaid volunteers doing quality work. If the EU wants "domestic" stuff they need to mandate/incentivize it. It's not like if shit hits the fan the local employees cannot run the local stuff of non-EU companies. (Therefore the important thing is to have full control locally,…

50k EUR is a salary that only someone coming fresh out of the University will accept and only someone who has no other choice, e.g. someone not quite competitive on the market. If you want to make a difference then this is not the pool of people you're looking for.
Post reply on HN