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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

#271

Post by u8080 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #99
menaerus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you expecting these people to end up flush with cash, or what's the issue? No, you cannot build a serious product to compete with globally established products only by using the 50k EUR grant since serious products of larger scale (impact) necessitates more than a single expert. How do you build an alternative cloud or alternative database or alternative AI model with a 50k grant? Or how do you attract 10, 15 m…

> No, you cannot build a serious product to compete with globally established products only by using the 50k EUR grant Who said you have to? Software is not a "winner takes all", you can solve a niche problem, get paid OK for it, and have a better standard of living than the average person in your country. This is widespread in Europe already, not sure why it's so foreign to so many. I'm sorry, but that you and your…

Lol, imagine relying on underpaid volunteers in mission-critical software infrastructure. How about actually giving good encouraged people pay they deserve?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#272

Post by palata »

u8080 wrote: post #234
palata wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 rem…

I mean, EU has some de-facto BigTech giants like SAP which are on same anti-competitive side. It just happened that US was quicker and more successful in various areas including software. EU tactics on protectionism is creating legislative framework to apply tariffs to competing imports(i.e. import taxes and quotas(TARIC, etc), ecology-related fees, subsidies for local industries, restricting imports of goods for pri…

I am not sure what you are trying to say. My whole point is that regulations are required for a sane market.

The fact that the US wins because they don't play by the same rules does not mean that it is fair.

And the fact that the US bans Chinese tech when they do to the US what the US does to the rest of the world shows that the US doesn't find it fair either. It's just easier to accept an unfair situation when we benefit from it.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#274

Post by patmorgan23 »

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

Free to use vs free to do what ever you want with

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#275

Post by [deleted] »

lossyalgo wrote: post #153
tbrownaw wrote: post #122

Earlier 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.

[deleted]

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#276

Post by jszymborski »

fh973 wrote: post #18

Europe does not need more open source, it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry. It doesn't matter if the email platform a government uses is open source, but it should be able to pick a local alternative. It does not matter if the e-ID or payments app is running on an open source mobile OS, but it should be possible to run it on a non-US one. Policy may help the European software industry, at least…

They say "open source" but they are looking for "no-profit motive" IMO. Which is fine, but they should be opening a generous fund for democratically-run non-profits whose primary activity is developing open software which is useful for the EU and is an alternative to US corp-controlled software.

EU has plenty of these orgs it can generously fund, and scoping funding like this would create more. Some existing examples (many of which accept gov't funds but need a lot more to rival big tech):

- https://framasoft.org/en/

- https://www.igalia.com/

- https://deuxfleurs.fr/

- https://www.chatons.org/

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#277

Post by pc86 »

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.

[flagged]

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#278

Post by pphysch »

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…

European software industry is so interesting because my impression is that the (Western) OSS sector is largely supported by talented European developers. Just a vibe from interacting with hundreds of successful OSS projects.

Europe clearly has endemic talent, and I'm not even sure it's a funding problem rather than an organizational/leadership one. They could throw money at developers who already have decent if humble QoL, or they could bring them together to build large systems that can compete with American big tech.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#279

Post by shevy-java »

Has the EU commission still not understood that becoming a paid-by Washington lobby group, does not work for Europeans? So, why are they so slow in pushing into action here? Rather than money going into US corporations, have EU citizens work on specific open source projects, many of them, with clear goals. Simple example: libreoffice - improve interfacing with it. ALL governments, universities etc... would benefit from this. Not only in the EU but elsewhere too. I don't understand this insane slowness here, unless lobbyists run Brussels already.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#280

Post by hnthrow0287345 »

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.

How many tech people deep into open source are also going to be able to build convincing cases for governments? More importantly, to be more convincing than the sales people of MS/Amazon/Google who also have financial incentives to give away?

I don't think you'll get a complete switch here, this is looking more like "let's cultivate a backup option in case they really do start turning stuff off"

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