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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#321

Post by arp242 »

ramboldio wrote: post #174
golergka wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the intention behind such a proposal, history of unintended consequences of government intensives should stop any sensible person from implementing anything remotely like that. Do you remember how one company promised people a free shirt for open source contributions, and how it resulted in an epic shitstorm of garbage patches? Just a few months ago. Now, imagine this, but with actual money instead of T-…

This is for public policy people to figure out. They do stuff like that all the time. Of course it's not easy. But if it works, can be tremendously effective. Maybe a starter would be to give some maintainers of already successful projects a salary, if they want. Impossible to game.

Actually you can receive (modest) grants for this, for example from NLnet. I've been writing open source software full-time for the last two years funded partly by this.

There are also other grants I believe, but I'm not really an expert on this. I just know there are actually possibilities.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#322

Post by cletus »

MisterPea wrote: post #294
cletus wrote: post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

What's interesting is that India (which has many languages throughout the country) pretty much adopted English as the de facto business language. Are EU countries not the same? Genuinely don't know how English is perceived in these countries. Although this is probably much easier for India since it is one country.

The status of English is... complicated.

So all the languages of EU members are officially recognized. This has become increasingly unwieldy as you need translators in the EU Parliament for every combination and there probably aren't that many people who can translate Portugese to Estonian, for example.

There have been proposals over time to instead translate into a particular language. This has been resisted heavily by the French in particular because everyone knows that intermediate language would be English.

English really is the lingua franca at this point.

Additionally the presidency of the EU rotates every 6 months (IIRC), which has created its own problems. For example, when potential new members were negotiating the then-French EU president wanted to negotiate in French but (IIRC) new members tend to default to English.

If you look at number of proficient speakers, English is by far the most spoken language followed distantly by German, French and Italian (in that order). And this is still true even after the UK has left the EU.

English, French and German are the procedural languages of the European Commission.

English has clearly won here but there is a lot of resistance to this linguistic hegemony (as many see it). The French have a ministry to find new words for things to stop English loan words seeping in. Many people in many EU member states don't want to lose their culture and language. And I can understand that.

But, going back to the original point: people need to communicate. English is the natural means for that. As a result many people spend a lot of time and effort trying to preserve the status quo. This is another facet of conformity, in this case conforming to historical traditions and languages.

People who obsess about preserving language and culture aren't the people who start massively disruptive businesses.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#323

Post by Daishiman »

qsort wrote: post #78
selfhoster11 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% and the indispensable knowledge worker class that can't be automated away or juiced dry for all the productivity they are capa…

Not going to comment on anything else since "flexible working laws" and "less relaxing lifestyle" can mean anything, but "light a fire under their ass until they are forced to innovate" is unironically and unapologetically good. If there's one thing that consistently fosters innovation and progress it's competition. That's something that holds true everywhere. Software, industry, education, games, sports, you name it…

I've had the best ideas and the sharpest intellect once I had _plenty_ of money to be comfortable such that I could just sit on my ass thinking about whatever I wanted without worrying whether I needed to make ends meet.

You are so wrong it's not even funny.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#324

Post by goodpoint »

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…

> I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination."

It also strikes me as really inaccurate. If anything, a lot of Europeans value creativity and cultural interests over raw productivity or money.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#325

Post by nudgeee »

hef19898 wrote: post #143
krelian wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a European, I can only hope that our culture doesn't degrade itself to that degree. The question is whether Europe will be able to maintain its wealth - which is the main thing that makes possible the luxury of having a more relaxed lifestyle - in the long term while falling behind economically. Most of Europe's wealth is based around old world economy.

We already see a wealth gap between the North and South and the West and East. Also between the old and young. Not sure what that means for the future. Europes wealth is based, to a large extent, on hardware and a huge number of wealthy citizens. As long as hardware is a thing (not talking electronics but stuff like cars and so on), and we manage to not cut of the poorer 20-30% of society, Europe should do fine.

Even in the electronics space EU has some big players — NXP, ST, Infineon, Bosch, Philips, ASML, Orsam, etc.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#326

Post by arp242 »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #61

> If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software, NEVER in my 30+ years as a user of computer networks or communication programs I have seen the "better software" win. It has always been the most marketing, the most shady ethics, or anything else that lead to the strongest network effect.

I do agree this is an important factor, but there are various well-known counter examples, so "NEVER" seems far too strong.

Google was significantly better than anything else at the time, and in spite of the problems with Google, its search result are still quite a bit better than most others I've tried.

GitHub was a huge improvement over anything that came before it, and after a review of alternatives some months ago it still clearly is the best product IMO.

Internet Explorer was a lot better than Netscape. Yes, it was a mess, but Netscape was an even bigger mess.

There are probably other examples.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#327

Post by kaba0 »

jkingsbery wrote: post #289
ramboldio wrote: post #162

The EU should just pay anybody who makes Open Source contributions. Problem solved. Europeans get their own tech stack. Can compete again with US companies, as the all the cost for building infrastructure is externalized.

Right. Last I read, Hacktoberfest created a huge amount of spam for Open Source contributions, and all that was on the line there was a t-shirt. You seem to be suggesting that real money should be involved - do you think the outcome will be different than Hacktoberfest?

Yes? Like donating money to a well-established project is very different than sending a t-shirt to whoever creates a repo with 2 commits or what..

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#328

Post by wyager »

hardolaf wrote: post #291
selfhoster11 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While also spending more money on various things, or having to spend them on privatised health care etc. It's not directly comparable. My point also discussed things like infrastructure and public services, which are often very neglected compared to their European counterparts.

Yeah, that statement made zero sense by the other person. Sure, on paper, us Americans at the median have more money. But after you pay for a single visit to the ER or urgent care, or after you have a kid, or any expenses, Western Europeans are far better off. I know, I've been near that income level before. It's not a fun experience over here. That said, now that I've moved into a job that pays at least $225K per ye…

Most Americans have employer provided health insurance. Fewer than 10% have no health insurance. Hardly anyone is paying out of pocket.

> we need to completely restructure our society in the USA

The specific primary reason the USA is rich is that we’ve resisted the temptation to do harebrained projects like this.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#329

Post by wyager »

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #304
wyager wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% The median American is much richer than the median European.

The "median citizen" is an absurd concept given the income distribution. It completely fails to capture income inequality. Also access to free education, free healthcare and so on.

I think you’re confusing median and mean. Median actually does account for the long tail.

Over 90% of Americans have health insurance.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#330

Post by pkaye »

PaulHoule wrote: post #315
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…

My favorite European tech company is Atmel (Norway), which developed the AVR-8 microcontroller which is in the original Arduino (Italian). Particularly, Atmel made the last 8-bit microprocessor which was just a bit more carefully thought out than everything else on the market and carefully positioned to give a lot of bang per buck. Atmel got bought by Microchip (San Jose, USA) Today when I think of Europe I think of…

Unless I'm mistaken Amtel was founded in the US. However the AVR was developed in Norway.
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