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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

#71

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> software that is funded by public means

What fraction of global software spending does the EU command?

I love the vision. I'm just sceptical of how seriously it's being pursued if it's another Brussels project without resource commitments.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#72

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cumo wrote: post #51

Politics should never drive technical decisions unless the people involved actually understand the technology. When policy is made without that expertise, open source becomes a political slogan instead of a sustainable ecosystem.

> Politics should never drive technical decisions

This can never be true. Politics drives all decisions.

National politics may not. But assuming technical decisions are made on an aethereal plane above humanity is just assuming away complexity. It's the excuse of a technical team that developed something superb for no actual user.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cumo wrote: post #68
embedding-shape wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first your comment reads as negative, but you actually like this "call for evidence" then, as they're explicitly asking for feedback about it? Not sure why it reads so negative when you're actually seemingly agreeing with the submission.

This shows that the people in charge have no idea. If they understood the topic, there would be no need for evidence.

> the people in charge have no idea. If they understood the topic, there would be no need for evidence

A technically-superior solution nobody wants to use is useless.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#74

Post by orwin »

Roark66 wrote: post #39
fsflover wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> software that is funded by public means, such as from universities or institutions, ought to be made fully public, including ability to tweak Anyone who agrees with this should sign this petition made by Free Software Foundation Europe: https://publiccode.eu

While I agree with the sentiment I'm not sure this is actually viable. For example here in Poland the previous govt invested in huge amount of software for digital govt services. From company formation, social insurance/heathcare (things like electronic prescriptions and patient data) to tax submission at all levels. All of this is implemented using publicly documented open standards so anyone can write a client for…

Because if everything the government does is open source by default, the standards will be open standards by default. You can then add non-default code (closed source) for some applications (health, military).

Also open source government code means other governments can fork it, overall lowering implementation costs, while still keeping code sovereignty.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#75

Post by kubb »

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…

I wonder if this is useful feedback to give? It would probably need to be more actionable. I’m hopeful the European open source community will take this invitation seriously.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#76

Post by menaerus »

embedding-shape wrote: post #48
Xelbair wrote: post #17

We'll see how it goes this time. If they once again go for creating their own forks, instead of financing development of existing software then I'll know the initiative failed. Also imho their 'questions' mentioned in the comment kinda feel like they have answer baked in - like it's foregone conclusion. Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of…

> Still - I hope EU will just have a decent program financing or contributing in any shape or form to development of OSS. I think at this point we're beyond that, we already have these programs and they seem to be expanding. EU-STF is one such example, then there are other organizations supported by the EU in various ways, that also helps fund OSS, like NLnet Foundation.

Do you honestly believe that all of these funding programs are beyond the point of "decency"? If we leave aside all of the bureaucratic bs, political connections and corruption when it comes to obtaining these funds (for the most cases), how do you attract experts in the field with 50k EUR grants?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#77

Post by tomaytotomato »

embedding-shape wrote: post #69
tomaytotomato wrote: post #15

Maybe the EU can develop its own version of Linux OS, just like North Korea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS -- edit When legislators start getting involved they will want to inevitably have their "own" version of something and their own SLAs and contracts. The reason they went with Microsoft/IBM/Oracle and others back in the day for software solutions is; they know on a piece of paper what they are getting…

Is all the distributions where most core developers already live in Europe/EU not enough for you? Take a look at where most of the active contributors live for some distributions, and I think you'd be surprised :)

With my original flippant comment I was trying to highlight that despite the many Opensource projects and the many awesome people who contribute to them, they should stay at arms length from EU and its legislators.

When legislators start getting involved they will want to inevitably have their "own" version of something and their own SLAs and contracts.

The reason they went with Microsoft/IBM/Oracle and others back in the day for software solutions is; they know on a piece of paper what they are getting, and who they can blame if they don't get it.

With Opensource OS and software, even with auditing and stuff, there is no way to blame anyone apart from end-users. For politicians and bureacracts, that is a scary thing, as they will be the ones to blame (read: asses on the line)

The consultation is great and all but I am skeptical, so I wouldn't be surprised in a few years we will have a EU approved OS that is controlled by bureaucracts.

Hence my comparison to North Korea's Linux distro

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#78

Post by kittikitti »

From my experience, people against open source often have buyers remorse. They often paid egregious sums of money for proprietary software that, to be fair, works well and includes enterprise support. When the same someone encounters the same solution but free and open source, they start rationalizing. The difference is mainly marketing, where open source projects have little to no marketing budget and are largely denied by market makers. Proprietary solutions can afford the seminars, thousands of dollars a week on ads, and other perks which increase discovery.

The moral of the story is to be careful listening to people actively tarnishing open source as they are a crowd of bitter people. A tell-tale sign is that they don't talk about the benefits of proprietary technologies such as the level of customer support and technical expertise that comes with the bill and instead only bash on open source.

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#79

Post by tgv »

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…

> software that is funded by public means, such as from universities or institutions

I think that might be the wrong approach, at least in this day and age. The spirit is good, but that software has cost good money to produce, and universities are dependent on external revenue. It's not unreasonable to charge for the things they produce.

Also, should e.g. an American company have access to software produced by an Italian university?

Re: European Commission issues call for evidence on open source

#80

Post by embedding-shape »

tomaytotomato wrote: post #77
embedding-shape wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is all the distributions where most core developers already live in Europe/EU not enough for you? Take a look at where most of the active contributors live for some distributions, and I think you'd be surprised :)

With my original flippant comment I was trying to highlight that despite the many Opensource projects and the many awesome people who contribute to them, they should stay at arms length from EU and its legislators. When legislators start getting involved they will want to inevitably have their "own" version of something and their own SLAs and contracts. The reason they went with Microsoft/IBM/Oracle and others back i…

> despite the many Opensource projects and the many awesome people who contribute to them, they should stay at arms length from EU and its legislators.

But despite that, they exist today, successfully so, and continue being funded by the very people you claim they should stay away from.

I'm not sure if you looked into how this whole "funding FOSS" thing works like, but governments are not opening a fund, letting any FOSS developer expense stuff to it and calling it a day. Usually they contract a company to work on things, that then end up FOSS.

Even if the end result is FOSS or not, they have the same people they can blame if they want to, the people they paid for certain results. The license of the finished thing doesn't change who's responsible for doing the job they've been paid to do.

I think until you actually understanding how the funding works, it would be fair to avoid doing flippant comments who basically only try to add some fuel to some fire, with some completely out of place comparison to a NK Linux distribution.

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