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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

#241

Post by rambambram »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #159
rambambram wrote: post #86

The EU has Schleswig-Holstein (a German state) as an example; office software and email replaced by open source alternatives. Look overthere, I would say. But overthere is a politician who actually understands what he is talking about. I don't feel the need to provide governments/politicians with open source software who think like this: "open source – which is a public good to be freely used". Start understanding ho…

> 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…

I don't tell them to F off, I give them my citizen opinion on HN. I expect their policy to be in their best interest, and I stopped hating on that a long time ago.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#242

Post by toomuchtodo »

ryandrake wrote: post #240
tgv wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the argument is basically: because taxes, and only taxes, paid for something somewhere, it should be free for everybody everywhere? Ah wait, you're somebody else. Why the somewhat unhinged attack on Europe? Because Europe is getting US tech for free?

30 years ago, one of the things we were all naively hoping for was that a globally connected network would help to reduce the tribalism, obsolete these "American money" and "European bits" and "Chinese protocols" ideas and stop all the cross-border fighting over what's mine and what's yours. When a piece of software has contributors from 50 countries, how could it "belong" to one country? Obviously we are in an even…

I've seen this work in certain situations, CERN and the LHC for example (I was on a data team for a detector). Everyone was driven by the science, where you came from didn't matter. With that said, and this part is going to be inflammatory potentially, people who are fear and tribal/in group driven are likely never going to be swayed (and building the mental model up via comments to properly contextualize this is beyond the scope of this thread). Tech doesn't fix people problems.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#243

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

tbrownaw wrote: post #122
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.” It occurs to me that this is a rather US-centric analogy.

Ah, this is the first time I understand the analogy because my mother tongue has two different words for "free", so I did not realize there was a need to differentiate

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#244

Post by labcomputer »

palata wrote: post #126
cryptica wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agreed, it does not necessarily have to be open source. But my opinion is that if the taxpayer's money is used to pay for software, then that software should be open source. Yes. The government has more than enough leverage to demand this. Skill was never the problem. The problem is bureaucracy; too many regulations and massive hidden corruption. The problem with the regulations is that they were designed with the…

> The problem is bureaucracy; too many regulations and massive hidden corruption I keep hearing the "too many regulations" argument, and I totally disagree. Too few regulations (or rather no enforcement of them) resulted in the TooBigTech monopolies we have today. Of course, they got so successful because of the lack of regulations, but now it's simply impossible to compete with them. Removing regulations (assuming t…

That seems like a lot of words to basically just admit that Europe’s regulations are anti-competitive.

I especially enjoyed reading the logical fallacy of drone companies that are so small/non-existent that DJI cannot be banned quickly, but those same companies mysteriously have enough money to bribe politicians for a ban (and the much bigger DJI can’t outbid them).

Also: You wrote in a previous comment that nobody can compete with Apple due to lack of antitrust regulation:

> > 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.

But now you are saying that Huawei was about to unseat them and therefore needed to be banned. So… which is it?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#245

Post by letmetweakit »

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.

Yes, I think anyone with common sense is thinking that way these days. He's going to inflict huge damage on the US economy.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#246

Post by [deleted] »

tbrownaw wrote: post #122
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.” It occurs to me that this is a rather US-centric analogy.

[deleted]

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#247

Post by irishcoffee »

swiftcoder wrote: post #121
mort96 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither beer nor speech were the topics of discussion. "Free as in speech rather than free as in beer" is an analogy commonly used to specify that you're talking about freedom rather than money.

Being the only Romance language that doesn't have separate words for "libre" and "gratis" (liberté and gratuit, etc), has its downsides

I could make an argument that "Complimentary" would be analogous to gratis in this context.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#248

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#249

Post by menaerus »

mhitza wrote: post #141
menaerus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the topic that is being discussed, as in: > The EU faces a significant problem of dependence on non-EU countries in the digital sphere. This reduces users' choice, hampers EU companies' competitiveness and can raise supply chain security issues as it makes it difficult to control our digital infrastructure (both physical and software components), potentially creating vulnerabilities including in critical…

> Please leave your utopistic comments elsewhere and not on this topic where it's relevant to stay objective. There is no objectiveness in cultural assessment. They didn't express their opinion as something that is universally true, or at least I wasn't able to read it that way.

They did because they imposed their opinion in such a way that my opinion on the subject is trying to be made as something marginal or not usual, and theirs, consequentially, as something more universal. Therefore, I disagree.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#250

Post by nunobrito »

radlad wrote: post #217
dizlexic wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't start when it was people losing their jobs on the right? Brandon Eich's political donation comes to mind.

Brandon Eich resigned.

Due to discrimination and bullying. There goes freedom of expression out of the door. Fortunately that crazy ship has long sailed and nowadays he'd have enough support to resist and publicly voice his opinions without personal attacks.
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