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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

#181

Post by lompad »

keybored wrote: post #136
lompad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason such a state would have to set things up this way. As an example: you probably know that germany has socialized healthcare. It is, however, not implemented as a single-payer model. Instead there are tons of different insurances competing with each other, while having a highly regulated floor of what they MUST offer. Is the model perfect? Hell no, it has tons of issues - though overall it's pretty s…

And social democracy forked from the socialist tradition over half a century ago (GGP[1] said socialism/communism). So both you and GP are wrong. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551378

Problem here being that those terms aren't used as defined in regular discourse. Language changes and casual use differs from academic use.

When on an american-centric board anybody writes about "communism", I assume they refer to anything from marxism to stalinism to socialism to democratic socialism to social democracy up to anything non-hyper-capitalist. Not great, but sadly something to be taken into consideration.

Especially when looked at in context - parent was criticizing the EU initiative by essentially claiming something like that leads to a kind of monoculture like in a planned economy reminiscent of "communism", here probably meaning stalinism, from what I assume is a radical libertarian position. Which tells me the person is likely american, implying a rather ... minimal awareness of the nuance here.

Please, look at the actual comment chain and it should be rather trivial to make out what everybody is talking about. Does your comment really add value here?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#182

Post by dsign »

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.

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.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#183

Post by afthonos »

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

[flagged]

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#184

Post by user2722 »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #173
NoboruWataya wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The EU very regularly asks for input on new policy initiatives, it's one of the better aspects of the legislative/policy-making process. And then it basically ignores all the input and moves forward with policies like chat control that are widely unpopular anyway. So much for consulting the people and asking for feedback.

Yes. Probably someone in power is getting kickbacks to ignore the public and specialists. Once that hurdle is settled, whatever the way it happens, saner people can re-use previous requests for opinion to guide them on better paths.

Waste some - but not too much - of your energy poking our EU orgs to the right way.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#185

Post by clarionbell »

tommica wrote: post #117

They should make it easier to run own businesses in Europe, lessen then amount of paperwork and red tape. It's impossible to start a tech business under the amount of bureaucracy they throw at you. I'd love to give it a go, but to get even started I have to pay accountants, banks, lawyers, pre-taxes, etc before I even have made a single cent.

Draghi report made it abundantly clear that this is the big issue. Despite being outwardly unified, EU market is horribly fractured, with regulations building on top of EU standards in almost every state and every area of business.

Then there are high energy costs, high salary costs, limited mobility of the workforce (partly due to ongoing housing crisis), entrenched overseas competition that doesn't have to deal with same challenges.

Together, these add to a deadly mix. Paradoxically, software is less affected than other industries. But even here it's bad.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#186

Post by kwanbix »

As a South American, it’s striking to see how the current U.S. administration has forced other countries to confront the risks of not having their own digital infrastructure.

And this isn’t just about software or the cloud. What happens if tomorrow the U.S. forbids Apple from selling iPhones outside its borders? Or starts requiring built-in backdoors or kill switchs?

Scenarios like these raise a deeper question: could this push the most powerful players, the US, EU, China, and India to eventually rebuild entire technology stacks from scratch in the name of self preservation?

Could this mean the end of a globalized world?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#187

Post by PurpleRamen »

pembrook wrote: post #135
PurpleRamen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe does not need more open source, Europe is not one country, not even the EU is perfectly united. It's a dozen different countries, each with their own political and technical landscape, and Open Source is seen as the logical solution to unite them without raising a new (local) software-dictator. > it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry. It has a good software industry, and it could of cour…

> unite them without raising a new (local) software-dictator If you're afraid that one country might create a better software product/company and win the market and this would become 'unfair,' you've already lost the plot. Instead of harnessing the best talent the EU has to offer, you're making sure they never get off the ground in the name of 'fairness.' Tall poppy syndrome in the extreme. I'm sorry but the free mar…

That's an interesstingly delusional take, considering Open Source would support the free market in this specific case.

> If you're afraid that one country might create a better software product/company and win the market and this would become 'unfair,' you've already lost the plot.

That's not how this market works. With government, many projects do not make the deal because they have the better offer or superiour product, but because the company is better at playing the administration, which usually comes down to "investing more money". Open Source and open standards can remove some of the leverages they use, enabling smaller companies to play on a bigger field, and thus improving the market overall.

And with the actual political situation in Europe, there is also the beneficial sideeffect that more players in the market, and less dependecy from single point of failures, will allow everyone to raise their survival-rate in case of hostile actions.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#188

Post by carlosjobim »

fsflover wrote: post #157
carlosjobim wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I could purchase the fully fledged OS X operating system as a consumer for $20, and get customer support for it. Now the OS is free with customer support.

> There is no artificial monopoly in FLOSS

I don't care about that as a consumer. I want software / a computer which works and easy customer support if I need it. People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know. Because FLOSS developers hate consumers and worship corporate enterprises.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#189

Post by nandomrumber »

elric wrote: post #158
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.

There is some EUPL software available here: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#190

Post by Tarq0n »

roenxi wrote: post #89
tgv wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> software that is funded by public means, such as from universities or institutions I think that might be the wrong approach, at least in this day and age. The spirit is good, but that software has cost good money to produce, and universities are dependent on external revenue. It's not unreasonable to charge for the things they produce. Also, should e.g. an American company have access to software produced by an Ita…

> It's not unreasonable to charge for the things they produce. When it is funded publicly it certainly is. A key feature of the university research system is that it is where people are supported without the expectation that their work is going to be commercially useful in any near-term time frame. If something is going to be commercially valuable then people should develop it in the private sphere. Nothing stopping…

That seems contradictory with the idea that software should be developed in the private sphere: closed source, proprietary APIs, patents and trade secrets are the antithesis of sharing knowledge.
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