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

politico.eu

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

#141

Post by namdnay »

enriquto wrote: post #75
icelancer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding. When I was in France I was appalled at the rates they were paying software developers. For a collection of countries that boasts better living standards for people, the comparative gap in pay for technical positions is absurd.

A junior developer cannot at all afford renting an appartment in Paris with his basis salary. For other jobs outside of software, it is even worse.

> A junior developer cannot at all afford renting an appartment in Paris with his basis salary

To be fair, that's the same in London or SF :)

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

#142

Post by raverbashing »

WanderPanda wrote: post #80
adev_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's the tragedy of the government-backed tech in France. You also have a lot of very skilled tech companies there, but they are not the ones getting government support to grow further. That's almost an universal tragedy. The good techies, the innovative engineers or the avant-garde researchers... Typically, the one doing the work... are generally not the one doing outreach, going around in convention, networking,…

I is too easy to attribute this to some „culture“ that randomly formed and which did not happen in europe. I mean how likely is that? I believe there is a much more structural thing to it

> to some „culture“ that randomly formed and which did not happen in europe

Because when WWII ended and Europe was rebuilding, in some low-key corner of the West Coast of the US, some military contractors were trying to figure out what would their next projects look like (and getting more money from the US Gov. to fight the Russians, of course)

Then these guys became the best (read, selling more) in one thing called semiconductors then the best at this other new thing that was called computers and that's how it went.

And I might add that being the junction of tech and (accidentally) some weird hippie corner of the US might have helped in some aspects.

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

#143

Post by cyborgx7 »

thiht wrote: post #138

I see a lot of hate in this thread regarding a disruption to US hegemony. I guess that's why we need projects like Gaia-X. I wholeheartedly hope it will succeed, and given the companies that are involved in it, I'm pretty confident about it.

No kidding. I would love European tech sovereignty. Something I've been advocating for a long time. I wish the Linux in public institutions that was tried in Germany caught on.

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

#144

Post by namdnay »

Nextgrid wrote: post #139
namdnay wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a bit of a brain drain, but it's also compensated by great engineers from poorer countries (Italy, Romania, Poland etc) migrating in If remote works, it won't really be a brain drain anymore, because they'll be paying taxes and spending their money in France :)

Is there any reason why the engineers from poorer countries will emigrate to France instead of the better-paying countries?

I don't know, I think you have to look at it with an EU scope. Within Shengen only Luxemburg and Switzerland pay significantly better than France. Germany is more or less aligned

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

#145

Post by brmgb »

baxtr wrote: post #137

This is so sad. As a European I would love to see some Internet giants created. Everybody says it's because we don't have homogenous market and so on. But my hunch is it is something different: Existing European companies are much more protected than their US counterparts, or even their UK counterparts. Think ThomasCook - would have been definitely been "saved" like TUI in Germany. That doesn't happen that much in th…

> Existing European companies are much more protected than their US counterparts

That's a complete myth. The USA affords a lot of direct and indirect protection to its companies, far more than Europe does usually.

You have things like the "Buy American Act" ensuring US companies don't face external competition for public markets, a different system of measures and crucially norms slowing the entry of external actors and a strong cultural emphasis amongst the population on economic patriotism and buying American which mostly doesn't exist in Europe.

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

#146

Post by adev_ »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #127
adev_ wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France is #1 in the EU for public spending [1]. That's a well known overstatement that comes mainly from the fact Pension system, education system AND health care system are almost entirely state-owned in France. You can find the same pattern in some Scandinavian country btw, France is not an exception. > There is a reason why so many rich French people live in Belgium or London. You can say the same with British a…

It is certainly not an overstatement, and the issue of tax goes far beyond what you may see as an individual (for example, overall labour costs [1]). France is not an exception in its organisation, in fact its health care system is LESS state-owned than, say, the UK's. But it spends a lot, taxes a lot, and, to compound the issues, is not flexible. You seem to actually agree that France has problems with its legislati…

> It is certainly not an overstatement. As you say, France in not an exception in its organisation, in fact its health care system is LESS state-owned than, say, the UK's.

It is. Especially if you compare with the public spending/GDP collectively [1]. It is currently lower than USA and right in the average of OECD.

> You seem to actually agree that France has problems with its legislation and tax in the rest of your reply...

I totally agree with that. I disagree with the fact it is a taxe hell. In my experience, as a European who lived in several countries including France, it is in the average of Europe.

That said, I agree with you about the red tape / administrative burden.

[1]: https://data.oecd.org/chart/5Zub

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

#147

Post by ohgodplsno »

icelancer wrote: post #67
thamer wrote: post #14

It's no surprise the French government is involved in this. They love these moonshot projects that aim to create the French X for any X that is a successful service by an American company. Qwant[1], launched as "The French Google" with a focus on privacy, serves 10 million searches a day (a ridiculously small number). No one has heard of it, no one uses it, and it's another project with a dream of restoring France to…

How do they think Google became what it is, or most American companies like Amazon? That the US government funded it and kickstarted them with VC funds? A company like Airbus makes some sort of sense since the government heavily funds Boeing/Lockheed Martin via defense contracts. But Amazon/Google and VC-backed tech startups and companies? Not to mention that the pay for software developers and engineers in general i…

>How do they think Google became what it is,

With CIA funding, amongst others. https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

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

#148

Post by ohgodplsno »

iagovar wrote: post #109
polotics wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Qwant story is even worse than this, the level of cronyism and ineptitude, the extreme turnover of engineers, the lies from well connected french oligarchy hustlers...

Is there any place where I can read a bit about their history?

This article is in french, but NextImpact did a pretty solid job at showing the _latest_ bullshit:

https://www.nextinpact.com/news/108986-six-ans-apres-son-lan...

https://www.nextinpact.com/news/108320-qwant-mail-fail-linag...

turnover and employee discontent: https://www.nextinpact.com/news/108123-le-cahier-doleances-s...

Deepl (https://www.deepl.com/en/translator) will do a great job at translating those articles.

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

#149

Post by maze-le »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #143
thiht wrote: post #138

I see a lot of hate in this thread regarding a disruption to US hegemony. I guess that's why we need projects like Gaia-X. I wholeheartedly hope it will succeed, and given the companies that are involved in it, I'm pretty confident about it.

No kidding. I would love European tech sovereignty. Something I've been advocating for a long time. I wish the Linux in public institutions that was tried in Germany caught on.

> I wish the Linux in public institutions that was tried in Germany caught on.

Linux doesn't have a lot of lobbying power, and no important public figures like Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates that would personally intervene on its behalf.

https://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgaben/2019/10/interview-2/

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

#150

Post by sek »

They are competing with Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Those are not normal companies.

I also think that people underestimate that this space will get very low margin eventually and become even more commoditized. Most companies totally overpaid for IT enterprise solutions the last decades, they are sales driven and live off lock in effects of their hardware to milk their customers.

Now we got rid of physical hardware then it will take companies another 10 years to figure out that they also don't need 90% of all the cloud solutions they got sold on. The rest you can run everywhere cloud neutral with kubernetes or something else.

Will those three companies earn a trillion dollars during that process? Sure.

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