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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#241

Post by hutzlibu »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #25

I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination." What it lacks is freely flowing funding such that risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put i…

And I take a bit offense with selective quotes, because the original:

" For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money. "

tells a different message, than just

"Europe lacks imagination."

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#242

Post by dgaaaaaaaaaa »

misterbwong wrote: post #234
jillesvangurp wrote: post #179

I'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few iss…

A second reason is simply that the US as a big homogeneous market is a nice one to tackle for European companies as well. And often that means having a (big) presence in the US. The EU is basically many markets unified by really complex rules, bureaucracy, etc. There is free traffic of people but companies have a harder time dealing with local variations in legislation, hurdles for billing and taxation (e.g. VAT), ba…

True. But I think the problems are more nuanced. It is just harder to scale across EU than US. You'll need localization, marketing, customer support separately set up for different languages/countries.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#243

Post by yesbabyyes »

I must say that I lack the Scandinavian/Baltic perspective here. Some successful software projects founded in Scandinavia and the Baltics some of you have heard of include:

Linux Skype Spotify Mojang (Minecraft) Rovio (Angry Birds) SoundCloud Klarna MySQL Opera Qt

Even Tidal, Rdio and Beats Music can trace their ancestry to this region.

Not to mention the only(?) remaining competition to Chinese telecom, Ericsson and Nokia, following the defeat of Lucent, Nortel, Siemens et al.

With this perspective, perhaps it can be argued that speaking of Europe as a whole in this sense is unproductive.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#244

Post by 1experience »

If the issue is about security and not economics, free open source platforms already exist.

Europe should fund them heavily and by doing so give them the advertising power to compete with for-profit ones.

Otherwise they will end up squandering a lot of money, Covid apps are not a good example.[1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/henwet/the_uk_...

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#245

Post by abz10 »

game_the0ry wrote: post #144
sdevonoes wrote: post #89

> For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, in others you need to setup a sole proprietorship,…

> Also: being a software engineer/computer programmer in Europe is not as sexy as it is in USA. It's getting better, yes, but here the "engineer" is the last monkey. Managers and sales are the ones who get the credit. So, European mentality also plays a role here. Eventually those manager and sales people will learn that they need developers to build stuff, or else they can't manage anyone because nothing has been bu…

Unfortunately they are very slow learners and by the time they figure it out a lot of damage has been done.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#246

Post by kelvin0 »

thiago_fm wrote: post #4

This problem will never get fixed. The author forgot to mention in depth the main reason why EU isn't even in the game: culture. In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. A lot of third world countries are years ahead of the whole EU continent in that aspect. I say this because I live in Europe for the q…

I spoke with many French who moved to Canada (there are many in the last decade or so). And 99% mention that North American culture is much less rigid than French culture and there are much more opportunities over here.

They mention it's very hard to change careers in their country with a more 'hierarchical' and rigid culture and mobility is limited.

Totally different when they move and appreciate the mobility, freedom and opportunities.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#247

Post by mrtranscendence »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #84
jiofih wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t agree? A more substantial comment would be informative. Can you give us one example of a stellar open source UI you use daily?

Firefox is roughly as good as any other browser, which is to say it does some things better and some things worse, and many things roughly the same. Blender is one of the 2 or 3 dominant tools in its field. It's a niche field, so it's not for office work, but is nevertheless an incredible tool by any standard. For almost anyone's purposes, LibreOffice is better than any closed source equivalent tool (though some of t…

I mean, saying LibreOffice is better than Microsoft Office is like saying eating toothpaste is better than eating soap. You'll never get a Michelin star for serving Colgate, so I'm not sure I'd call LibreOffice "stellar".

But I don't think it's surprising that highly complex UI-driven applications aren't as plentiful in open source, where the sweet spot (from my perspective) has been smaller applications that scratch particular itches. Would an open suite of office tools even get off the ground today, built from scratch without funding from Sun and then Oracle?

Maybe I was just burned too hard by trying to figure out GIMP.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#248

Post by Foobar8568 »

varjag wrote: post #118
sdevonoes wrote: post #89

> For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, in others you need to setup a sole proprietorship,…

> The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. Seriously? Your plumber managed to establish a company. That kebab place across the street. The delivery guy subcontracting for courier service. And the company that wants to conquer the world can't?

Yeah I remember some big4 companies saying that France is among the easiest country to incorporate a company ( I think it was E&Y). The problem is more on : 1 - Europe can't have a common language 2 - Each country will support first their own companies, then US, then other competitive European companies 3 - A mess to expend outside of its own country. 4 - Culture of useless consultancy companies (Atos, Alten, Altran, Cap Gemini, Accenture, and a shit load of others) for France and several other countries killing any IT innovations.

And many more things.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#249

Post by tonyedgecombe »

notanormalnerd wrote: post #72
open-source-ux wrote: post #51

Although the EU is a marketplace of 27 countries, it is not a digitally homogeneous marketplace. Adoption and acceptance of digital tools varies by country. Language is also important - the tech giants localise their apps and tools. But many software companies in larger European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc) concentrate on their home country first before they focus on international reach. That makes s…

I want to highlight this. There is always talk about a european market, but it is more like 27 markets with one access ticket. You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure. Although you have a market of 300 million consumers, they all have different spending habits, different spending power, different needs... America is one market of 300 million pe…

>You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure.

If I look at most of my European sales they are in Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavia. The UK was in that list until Brexit.

I don't think you need to target all 27, at least not until you are well established.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#250

Post by xputer »

csunbird wrote: post #121
wdb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be that their scarcity of software developers in Germany that requires foreign work or alternatively foreigners ask a lower salary

The question needs to be asked here is: Why there is a shortage of developers in Germany, while people having access to free education? One reason is that I can be paid three times more in the US, and with the extra disposable income, I can live a better life, even without the legal protections. Second reason is that, why should the kids even bother studying computer science for 4-6 years to earn 3k per month? A plum…

Why did I have to scroll so far to find this? Tech jobs pay almost an order of magnitude more in the US. Cost of living is of course higher and you likely still won't be able to but a house any time soon, but still the difference is stark. Europe severely underpays its tech workers, so the US is able to attract all the smartest people.
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