So when is France/Germany going to subsidize a local competitor, say through anchor customers like their militaries
Bring back the minitel.
Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#42Is it really "EU" Sovereignty? And not its member's Sovereignty?
Such heresy is detrimental to EU sovereignty... next you're going to remind people that some states are in the EU despite their citizens having opposed going in there. TBH, EU member states can be plenty oppressive when they want to, so - why not just take it to the next level and have all-European overlords?
That's a rather odd point. One country has left the EU due to a very narrow 'exit' vote, so it's not anyone's prison. Across surveys the EU enjoys broad support, often even more so than the national government.
Clearly not everyone loves the EU but the majorities are very much in favour (and certainly this is the case among the people who actually understand politics, economics, etc.).
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#43For me (as an EU citizen), sovereignty is about being independent of companies operating under law that I have no control of (can't vote in the US) and is veeery unpredictible (Trump administration). I don't want to wake up one day I find out my bill tripped because of some tax imposed on EU or completely cut off, because the president woke up in bad mood that morning. EU is very fat from perfect, but for me it is st…
I’m not sure why Europeans always bring Trump in here when it comes to this topic, except perhaps he, successfully it appears, woke many of them up from the slumber of dependency on global supply chains, of course, that Americans have been talking about for quite some time. You can’t vote in American elections, true, but you also can’t vote for the Ayatollah or Saudi Prince who controls your oil supply, the Brazilian…
He said exactly why: because Trump's policies are unpredictable. Before that, there was no problem, really. Of course, it's a political movement and Trump is much a symptom as a disease, but you're saying we should thank him for bringing about this unpredictability — because now we can see that unpredictability is possible? There's something seriously loopy about that argument. It's like asking one to thank the burglars because they woke them from their peaceful slumber of safety...
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such heresy is detrimental to EU sovereignty... next you're going to remind people that some states are in the EU despite their citizens having opposed going in there. TBH, EU member states can be plenty oppressive when they want to, so - why not just take it to the next level and have all-European overlords?
That's a rather odd point. One country has left the EU due to a very narrow 'exit' vote, so it's not anyone's prison. Across surveys the EU enjoys broad support, often even more so than the national government. Clearly not everyone loves the EU but the majorities are very much in favour (and certainly this is the case among the people who actually understand politics, economics, etc.).
I think the grandparent references many referendums that rejected EU treaties:
- Maastricht Treaty, 1992, Denmark, - European Constitution, 2005, France and Netherlands, - Lisbon Treaty, 2008, Ireland.
The votes were usually redone and passed. The exception is Norway which refused to join twice.
> Clearly not everyone loves the EU but the majorities are very much in favour (and certainly this is the case among the people who actually understand politics, economics, etc.).
This is quite the loaded statement. I've heard from people on either both sides of the argument that understood politics and economics very well (professors, lecturers, etc.)
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#45> Yes, the EU “cloud providers” are lagging behind but they’re catching up. Scaleway, Herzner, and others are there, and you should check them out if you’re starting a business in the EU. I would argue that these aren't even "cloud providers", they are just VPS providers. Which is fine, but it's not the same thing. There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doub…
This… It’s painful being a non-EU person working here, and hearing people wax lyrical about sovereign EU cloud without an actual product or product plan. And once a product is anctua shipped and offered it is like already 5 years behind what US clouds are offering. It’s embarrassing really
US clouds offer are featureful not first because it is useful, but because it is the best way to ensure vendor lock-in. A lot of implementors are now realizing that you can achieve the same level of service, or better, with less cloud features.
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#46> Yes, the EU “cloud providers” are lagging behind but they’re catching up. Scaleway, Herzner, and others are there, and you should check them out if you’re starting a business in the EU. I would argue that these aren't even "cloud providers", they are just VPS providers. Which is fine, but it's not the same thing. There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doub…
No. "Cloud" is a marketing term for VPSs.
It's frequently simplifying things so that you don't have to worry about managing a server at all.
I run a PowerShell script once a day at noon, and I have no idea what kind of server it's running on, where in the world that server is, how much memory it has, or any other details. I get about a CPU, a dozen MB of memory, and a tiny amount of network capacity for about 5 seconds.
This is a very different experience from "We will rent you a VPS by the month".
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#47I see a lot of conversation here about provider feature parity, but my hope is that sovereignty doesn't have to be strictly about the region or company you choose. For me, the strongest form of sovereignty can come at a lower level. That is, running on an open-source stack you can pick up and run somewhere else should you need to. If your data and workloads live on standard Kubernetes with Postgres, object storage and the usual Prometheus/Grafana/Loki, then no single provider (EU or otherwise) actually has you over a barrel. As the article points out, the "AWS Europe is a separate subsidiary" argument does nothing if the software still ships from the USA.
Shameless plug: We started our company[0] on this basis, i.e. managed Kubernetes on bare metal in EU DCs. We run everything on open source tooling, provide DevOps engineering time to our customers' engineering teams, take on the migration risk ourselves, and offer response-time SLAs. So yes I'm biased, but I did this because I do actually really believe in this approach.
So I'd flip it around. Perhaps building a sovereign hyperscaler is the wrong approach. I'd say we need workloads that aren't welded to any one provider in the first place. And open source tools have come a very long way since EC2 first came online.
[0] - https://lithus.eu/
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#48> Yes, the EU “cloud providers” are lagging behind but they’re catching up. Scaleway, Herzner, and others are there, and you should check them out if you’re starting a business in the EU. I would argue that these aren't even "cloud providers", they are just VPS providers. Which is fine, but it's not the same thing. There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doub…
I know Cyso Cloud (previously Fuga Cloud - still Netherlands-hosted) lets you host K8S applications, and has S3-compatible storage. Is that what you mean with "cloud"?
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#49> Yes, the EU “cloud providers” are lagging behind but they’re catching up. Scaleway, Herzner, and others are there, and you should check them out if you’re starting a business in the EU. I would argue that these aren't even "cloud providers", they are just VPS providers. Which is fine, but it's not the same thing. There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doub…
> Who is investing in that? Big companies that see the opportunity to be "Not AWS"? A VPS provider who wants to grow their marketshare? Nation states? Not saying it'll be a small effort, but if the US continues to wield national laws to coerce American companies to negatively affect European citizens, it's possible.
Even if they dont care us "law" it is costing us businesses a fortune.
National security by ruining the market and alienating allies to the point of uniting the world against you???
Re: Let's talk about EU Sovereignty (2025)
#50Sovereignty erodes with giving control to outside entities. I just came to Netherlands for a short visit and oh my god how much better the food is (comparing to Canada mostly). Please, please stay sovereign.
Now imagine Netherlands has a reputation in Europe as having the most bland and utilitarian cuisine.
I presume nullorempty got a Kapsalon (fries with Doner Kebab - it's so fucking good) and entered heaven for a few minutes.