Did people here see the Cory Doctorow thing a few days back about DMCA and "Article 6 of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive"?
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
Basically without open source, the rest of the world will have to keep paying a tithe to American companies, and hence tax in the USA.
European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
191–200 of 380 posts
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I see it as English-centric, rather than US-centric. That differentiation isn't necessary in most (all?) languages. Adopting the word "gratis" when the speaker means "at no monetary cost" also helps clarify things.
Would it be more correct to say it doesn’t necessarily mean free as in beer?
Someone can give you a free beer and a complimentary license to manufacture and distribute that same beer, and even make changes to the recipe.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#193Earlier 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
I too struggled to understand this when I first came across it.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#194Earlier 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…
>The spirit is good, but that software has cost good money to produce, and universities are dependent on external revenue Obviously, but most of university research - at least in Europe - is funded by public money. The idea is that research funded by public money should be public by default, unless there's a reason to do otherwise. >Also, should e.g. an American company have access to software produced by an Italian…
Yet it's not American "public" money that funded it.
And it's good to realize what 'public' means in this case: paid for by the general public. What companies produce is also (often) paid for by them, only not via taxes but through purchases, subscriptions, etc. Why should the software produced by companies be exempt?
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a software industry. It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive, and whenever the EU tries to apply antitrust laws, they get bullied by the US. > It does not matter if the e-ID or payments app is running on an open source mobile OS, but it…
Idk, europeans saying thing like "It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive" implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist.
> europeans saying thing like
Where did I say I was European?
> implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist
Anti-competitive behaviours from TooBigTech are well documented, and they are regularly fined for that. I'm sure it happens from EU companies, but it has less impact given that the software industry is almost entirely dominated by US companies.
Now I can't remember the last time the EU threatened the US to prevent them from regulating EU companies?
Also are you aware that pretty much all governments in the EU rely on the US monopolies? I wouldn't call that "extremely protectionnist". As compared to e.g. the US banning Huawei or TikTok or DJI.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#196Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> I don't care about that as a consumer.
Until this happens: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075. Or, worse, this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 or this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556. Megacorps don't care about your requests for support.
> People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know
https://www.debian.org/consultants/
https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/hardware/certified-h...
and much more. Have you tried using search?
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46552049
But this is US operating system, Linux trademark is registered to US citizen(Linus T.), it is being mainly developed by US companies and complies with US sanction laws.
> Linux trademark
doesn't matter. You can't close it or prohibit its usage or forking.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
It didn't start when it was people losing their jobs on the right?
Brandon Eich's political donation comes to mind.
Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a software industry. It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive, and whenever the EU tries to apply antitrust laws, they get bullied by the US. > It does not matter if the e-ID or payments app is running on an open source mobile OS, but it…
> Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a software industry. It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive, and whenever the EU tries to apply antitrust laws, they get bullied by the US. Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? Concretely no. What's stopping this is t…
> Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe?
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.
> It's getting tiring of hearing of the big bad Microsoft that stops poor Europe from competing properly.
Who says that? I don't. What I say is that the big bad monopolies stop others from competing properly.
But the big bad monopolies being US companies, they are protected by the US government who doesn't really care about having US competition in the US, but cares about domining over the rest of the world.
> The EU tech salaries are ridiculously low and the tax burden is unreasonably high. Add on top of that an aversion to risk from the banks and VC funds in Europe and this is what you get.
Again, a handful of companies completely dominate the software industry in the US, too. Is that because of ridiculously low salaries and unreasonably high tax burden in the US? I don't get the reasoning.