Live data from Hacker News

European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

lwn.net

371–380 of 380 posts

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how I could convince you, or anyone that's educated under the American capitalist system, that working for a commons is better in aggregate than relying on companies to pay for innovation and then keeping it a secret. "Competitive" is a slur in my opinion, I'd rather my work be "useful".

Dystopian. You're missing some fundamental understanding how economics work but to each his own. Respectfully.

Working on things that make you happy instead of pushing the agenda of your employers, which in majority is unethical, immoral, or plainly unhealthy, is dystopian? It sounds utopian to me. :)

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#372
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have anything polite to answer to this :-).

Please post your impolite answer. I don't mind :) EU (software) industry is a dream for mediocre skilled people. Secure a job once, can't get fired, do bare minimum and never be proactive. It is a hell for people who work hard and fast. The whole culture is geared towards dragging down anyone who is proactive and makes others look bad by being too good.

I agree with some reservations about this being completly generalised. There are still some successfull companies that rewards good players. But yes, there are very few and most of the rest are stuck coasting at a glacial pace, doing stuff that are not very competitive on so many levels it is impossible to describe succintly.

I would also argue that it is not just about the software industry. Many EU industries have become extremely uncompetitive on so many level. Even when you are ready to pay more for EU made products, it is not easy to find something that is decently competitive and not just a pale copy of better offerings.

It is clear that the EU has become too collectivist but they are still stuck blaming capitalism (just like the soviets I guess).

In France, even old big players that were once at the top and/or were (semi)public organisation have fallen very hard or have been scandalously sold piecemeal to foreign actors. The problem is not even that they are governement funded but it really is rooted in the collectivist organisation model that gives too much power to politics and very little lattitude to consumer/key actors choice.

Those systems become necessarily corrupted because they rely too much on human behaviors and most humans are fundamentally corrupt.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#373
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please post your impolite answer. I don't mind :) EU (software) industry is a dream for mediocre skilled people. Secure a job once, can't get fired, do bare minimum and never be proactive. It is a hell for people who work hard and fast. The whole culture is geared towards dragging down anyone who is proactive and makes others look bad by being too good.

I agree with some reservations about this being completly generalised. There are still some successfull companies that rewards good players. But yes, there are very few and most of the rest are stuck coasting at a glacial pace, doing stuff that are not very competitive on so many levels it is impossible to describe succintly. I would also argue that it is not just about the software industry. Many EU industries have…

> they are still stuck blaming capitalism (just like the soviets I guess).

I wouldn't say that the way it works in 2026 is the thing they called capitalism 50 years ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146010

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#374
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source is not communism. Communism would entail that we collectively own Linux, which we don't. It's private property, and if we want to use the code, we need to abide by its licensing terms. Licensing terms that are built upon the existence of copyright, a concept that allows for private ownership of intellectual property.

The licensing terms exist as a patch on copyright. If copyright law were fixed, we wouldn't need those terms at all.

> If copyright law were fixed, we wouldn't need those terms at all.

Why do you think so?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#375
post #10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it's free? Let's talk again when all open source projects are funded and controlled by the state with zero competition between them and no consumer choice. Only one Linux distro, only one database, only one web framework, etc. And it's decided top-down from the state what to work on. I doubt though that these projects would have started in the first place in a communist setting.

There is no reason such a state would have to set things up this way. As an example: you probably know that germany has socialized healthcare. It is, however, not implemented as a single-payer model. Instead there are tons of different insurances competing with each other, while having a highly regulated floor of what they MUST offer. Is the model perfect? Hell no, it has tons of issues - though overall it's pretty s…

> germany has socialized healthcare.

Germany has a dual healthcare system with both public (GKV) and private health insurance (PKV) options. About 10% of residents use private health insurance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#376
post #373
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some reservations about this being completly generalised. There are still some successfull companies that rewards good players. But yes, there are very few and most of the rest are stuck coasting at a glacial pace, doing stuff that are not very competitive on so many levels it is impossible to describe succintly. I would also argue that it is not just about the software industry. Many EU industries have…

> they are still stuck blaming capitalism (just like the soviets I guess). I wouldn't say that the way it works in 2026 is the thing they called capitalism 50 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146010

Yes, I completly agree with your point of view, which is exactly why I said that.

They are using capitalism as a boogeyman for everything, when in practice the system in place is so far removed from "real" capitalism that ones need to be either blind or ideologicaly corrupt to put the blame there.

Unregulated capitalism has many weakness, the most potent one being that there is pruning of useless actors and that results in poverty and some people being left behind. But the remedy that is applied today isn't really much better, people are still left behind, just more slowly and that comes with massive oppotunity cost for those at the bottom, since they are the ones most likely to really benefit from the freedom that comes with capitalism.

This is just what the ideologues working in academia and politics (deeply linked) always come up with, even though their existence and ability to make such critics is fully funded by capitalism. There are just keeping the tradition of Marx that was completly funded by capitalists but came up with the argument that it was the worst system possible.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#377
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always amazes me that there are people who genuinely believe that those who disagree with them are "so detached from reality". You are a genius, everybody else is dumb. Way to go. Have you already received your Nobels?

Not yet and I'm not sure I'm gonna receive it ever but one of the most important things I learned for myself is to understand my limits. I advise you to do the same.

Are you suggesting that the message I answered to was respectful?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The licensing terms exist as a patch on copyright. If copyright law were fixed, we wouldn't need those terms at all.

> If copyright law were fixed, we wouldn't need those terms at all. Why do you think so?

Because > 'The licensing terms exist as a patch on copyright.'

Upstreaming a patch implies you no longer need to maintain it.

Law doesn't quite work the same as software, but in this case the metaphor holds.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another option, to develop pan-european software as it has been done in other areas such as aerospace.

As long as you define pan-europe as like 5 countries.

Fair enough. A better word would be multinational.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#380
post #13

I'm going to send them my wishlist to see what happens. I'm not optimistic about this, but I'm not pessimistic either and am very curious to see what happens.

Can we see your wishlist?

I don't have one yet, unfortunately. But it's definitely going to include immich (not EU software I think), nextcloud, some form of email server, a secure chat app (which I don't think the EU has), mastodon, an android spinoff like GrapheneOS, Linux (ofc), open source EU LLMs, and I don't know much else, I'll have to think about it more.
Post reply on HN