EU OS for the Public Sector | Hacker News Reader

EU OS for the Public Sector

eu-os.eu

145 pointsdoener108 comments

What I do not understand is why not to work with the openSUSE community, or fork from them. But instead use a USA based distro like Fedora.

openSUSE has all their tooling based in EU ground. For example, OBS that is the build service, has the machines around Germany or Prague. A big bulk of the community is EU based, (with very relevant contributors from many other places), and SUSE, the company that is helping (via infra and some packages) is from Germany.

I do not known if sovereignty makes sense in the open source world, as at the end is a joint effort of multiple developers from many (and some times confronted) places, but if it does make sense then I would value more those other criteria.

I agree. I use both and have a slight preference towards Fedora these days, but nevertheless I believe that the foundation for the EU OS should be a European distro. Practically there is very little difference between OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Fedora.

nowadays, it's board is 3/5 American too

As of February 2025, the Board has the following members:

    Dr. Gerald Pfeifer (Austria), Chair
    Ish Sookun (Mauritius)
    Jeff Mahoney (United States)
    Rachel Schrader (United States)
    Shawn W Dunn (United States)
    Simon Lees (Australia

Especially weird since the dude behind it is professionally situated in data protection policy work.

Going with effing IBM is a really weird thing to do for his "Proof-of-Concept". Debian for its robustness or openSUSE for being distinctly european would have been much more inspiring.

https://blog.riemann.cc/resume/

And there's no clear value-add here. I am particularly adamant that Linux needs to move towards reproducibility yesterday, since the ability to inject spyware in Linux is first and foremost a process risk.

That is a key area too. I know that most of the distros are working in that direction[1], and in the case of Fedora, openSUSE or Debian they are reaching high level of reproducibility.

Those distributions are making huge efforts in keeping a core that is 100% reproducible, working upstream to fix issues, and providing reporting and tests tools to detect regressions (for example [2])

This is why a fork is usually a bad approach.

[1] https://reproducible-builds.org/who/projects/ [2] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Reproducible_Builds

> I do not known if sovereignty makes sense in the open source world

It doesn't. I read stuff like this as a way to ride jingoist currents.

Especially not in a software sense as compared to hosting where as a general rule someother jurisdiction than your own is prefarable.

Maybe there is a need for some sort of "Programmer without borders" soon if FOSS turns too much to nationalist quarrel.

There already is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univention_Corporate_Server

Not a fan. When I tried it a few years ago, I acquired significant painful scar tissue. It was very Windows-centric, and Linux support was an afterthought. It was more arcane than Active Directory.

After I left Univention behind, I migrated to JumpCloud. It has its faults. Linux support is also secondary to Windows support, but for me, it was several orders of magnitude easier to work with than Univention or Active Directory.

I miss NIS. It made many aspects of managing a collection of Linux machines much easier than anything to date. I hope that the future EU project does not adopt Univention, or anything like Active Directory. Instead, look to where NIS was successful, where JumpCloud is successful, and come up with a better solution overall.

Hrrm. I mentioned them, because I've used parts of their stuff in the past. Never their full distro, though I know people who did in the field of schools.

So they seem to know the stuff necessary to integrate in larger orgs with heterogenous systems.

Scar tissue seems to be unavoidable from Linux POV having to play well with Windows as it is, and has to be deployed in larger orgs.

Whatever. I doubt that this EU-OS people even have a clue about the basics of that.

I don't disagree. The EU needs to commit to running FOSS Desktop OSes. But I am concerned a "OS for the EU" Initiative will end up like all EU IT projects, that being smothered by red tape and (political) comitee stewardship.

I think the EU Public sector has too much variance in it to be safely serviced by just one distro. Just thinking on the hifdes of legacy infrastructure that needs to be kept integrated (storage, auth, etc).

I think a better approach would be to have a programme in the EU to allow local administration and PS agencies to establish their own FOSS desktop solutions and base information exchange on truly open standards would go a long way. Couple that with an incentive to utilize small shops for the execution instead of corporations and we might have a chance to emerge from the bug pile of mud that is current Public Sector IT before anybody else in the world.

Having an os that could run to substitute much of the "regular" desktops used by public sectors in eu would be quite nice, without going as far as substituting old servers with windows 2012

From what I can remember from the "Munich Linux" days, the biggest two hurdles where that 1. all processes had proprietary data formats (Office, exchange and some Adobe stuff) as a de facto standard and it was hard fo move suppliers to open ones and 2. That even mundane Public Sector PCs needed to interface with weird/old/arcane storage or authentication protocols.

So while on the surface that Desktop is something that should work with oob Linux parts it ends up being much more involved once you try it.

This is what I was thinking. I wonder if the advent web based Office changes that equation. I imagine besides excel and word, there are a lot of access based apps as well.

> the biggest two hurdles

The first one was Gates' visit to Munich. Corruption works wonders.

this comment on "why LiMux kinda failed" was pretty interesting to read: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39930203

this is what your looking for then

> https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/interoperable-euro...

and this too

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Fram...

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

quote

Draft Version 2 of the EIF[2] was the subject of a political debate, where the main technology/commercial issues relate to the role of lobbying for proprietary software.[4]

EIF 2 was adopted by the European Commission as the Annex II - EIF (European Interoperability Framework) of the Communication “Towards interoperability for European public services” on 16 December 2010.[5]

> But I am concerned a "OS for the EU" Initiative will end up like all EU IT projects, that being smothered by red tape and (political) comitee stewardship.

"All"? DNS4EU (https://www.joindns4.eu) seems to be progressing reasonably well.

> seems to be progressing reasonably well.

By what metric would that be? Not doubting it but I've heard about it first a few days ago.

The folks involved in the project have been pretty open about their project plans/timelines, speaking about it in webinars and various conferences, and have largely followed what they claimed. Making it available to the public undoubtedly could've been faster, but sometimes "move fast, break things" isn't ideal... (particularly for infrastructure that folks want to depend upon).

> speaking about it in webinars and various conferences

That's unfortunately the feeling I got from the landing page, lots of talking, bureaucracy and buzzword bingo and not much "doing".

I might be wrong. For comparison https://letsencrypt.org, not a single mention of "webinars" or "stakeholders".

That's what it looks like to me as well. I klocked through the home page on mobile, feels like 25 pages of "why this is a good thing" and a bit of self congratulatory acknowledgement but I didn't get any hint on how to participate, use it or where to see the code.

How can they claim to be "4 EU" while having their entire website hosted on Hubspot, a US-based company?

> But I am concerned a "OS for the EU" Initiative will end up like all EU IT projects, that being smothered by red tape and (political) comitee stewardship.

No need to worry then, this is not a EU IT project at all, just some Internet rando using a misleading name for their pet project.

> just some Internet rando using a misleading name for their pet project.

Thank god someone said it, there are actually so many of these strange projects that try to promote some improvement for 'their' problems and propose them as required by the EU to adopt, without understanding the complexity that's actually involved in how the EU works. Another example I'm reminded of was last week someone shared their proposal for a unified API to access particular medical data, notably the API was suiting only their needs.

But what bothers me the most is the huburis in assuming they know better and so continue to insult the EU's current systems.

Of course things can be improved, but it's not some start up that you can just break things for 80% of your customers who can't migrate to the next API version.

> I think the EU Public sector has too much variance in it to be safely serviced by just one distro.

I think that's THE problem. Every member country has at least one duplicate of some public sector thing (tax agency, property/citizen registry, health registry etc.) and each of them does their thing slightly differently.

> I think a better approach would be to <...> allow local administration <...> establish their own FOSS desktop solutions and base information exchange on truly open standards <...>.

Part of the problem are data schemas. Even if you mandate some common information exchange format, it is either somewhat opinionated on data schemas anyway or so generic that you need combinatorial explosion of custom middleware to align schemas. You just kick the can of pain down the road and eventually have a bunch of agencies that are in theory connected but cannot exchange data without "a project" anyway.

While slower and more painful to initially deploy, a much more fitting solution would be to have common open core software, enforcing common schemas, but allowing custom extensions/middleware.

> I think that's THE problem. Every member country has at least one duplicate of some public sector thing (tax agency, property/citizen registry, health registry etc.) and each of them does their thing slightly differently.

You say this as if it is a bad thing, this is part and parcel of how the EU works. It's not the same as a Federal system where there is one way and the rest are derivatives of it. There is more autonomy for each of the EU member states to do things how they want.

> It's not the same as a Federal system where there is one way and the rest are derivatives of it.

The general framework is still based on the same core principles and regulations, therefore cores most of the systems are much more alike than different. The differences come in additional details, where data models can be extended from common core and local workflows and local integrations, where custom development is required anyway. If those custom developments are built on top of common open core, the know-how translates laterally across whole EU and expertise can at the very least be shared.

> The general framework is still based on the same core principles and regulations, therefore cores most of the systems are much more alike than different.

No not really, I can say from an IE point of view, the reason the border at northern Ireland was such an issue for Brexit was because the good Friday agreement was because this was done outside of the EU. If the EU had the same authority as the Federal in the US as an example, there would be a hard border.

General framework yes, for regulations, but how you run your government, absolutely is up to you. Just look to Ordaban in Hungary. Not exactly playing well with the EU, doesn't mean the EU can force him to do something.

Edit : Again there are nuances with the EU. And there are issues, but overall it works really well.

- Was going to correct Orban's name but he's worth less the effort than typing this.

Okay, it seems there is misunderstanding.

What I meant that having multiple, slightly incompatible reimplementations of essentially the same base software is the biggest technical problem for common data access.

The name is misleading since it's not a EU led project, they mention it 'should be'.

I expect many more projects like this popping up, due to the current geopolitical environment

Is EU copyrighted?

"EU" is below the threshold of originality; it is not possible to "copyright" two letters, especially without any font or design associated with them.

Perhaps you are instead thinking of trademark protection? Trademark protection, of course, protects trademarks for particular specified industries and is scoped to nations where the holder does business/exists/has jurisdiction.

It's unlikely this will help, but it's 100% certain that copyright ain't gonna apply.

1) You are confusing copyright and trade marks.

2) Is "American" (or "Chinese", etc.) trademarked?

It's a project whose intended audience is the EU, with (hopeful) eventual EU adoption.

It seems not worse than e.g an American activist labeling their initiative "The American ________ Project". It's perhaps misleading here because HN's (otherwise good) rules to prevent sensationalism in titles disallows the poster to contextualize a post, except in a comment.

The project is led by EU citizens. Do you want a stamp from the European Commission to call it "trully European"? (If so, I would object).

public sector needs to be using self hosted FOSS services and infrastructure.

a good exaple is the french gendamerie (police) they are using there own OS GendBuntu > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu a flavor of ubuntu made for taking depositions etc.

all while saving 50 million euros since the start of the prgram and switching 100.000 desktops to it

case study: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/file...

It really pisses me off when some kind of public service demands documents in the format docx or expects one such document to be filled and uploaded. They can't truly assume that every single citizen must have a license of Microsoft Office.

docx is supported by OpenOffice/StarOffice/FreeOffice/whatever it's called this month.

Come on, it's just LibreOffice. OpenOffice/StarOffice have been more or less discontinued for the last decade. FreeOffice, I've never even heard of. There's no need to be so damn obtuse.

Technically, yes. But there's always something that doesn't render well.

There are a quite a few issues in the implementation to be honest. Almost at no point I was working with DOCX on LibreOffice and I could tell the document was being served the way it was originally intended to be served.

It has been called LibreOffice [1] since the fork from OpenOffice [2] which in turn was developed from StarOffice [3]. The fork and name change from OpenOffice to LibreOffice was due to the former coming under the control of Oracle, a company known for its militancy with regard to licence enforcement. The experience with the way Oracle stewards the Java brand and technology shows they do know how to handle free software so it may have been unnecessary to fork the project but that aside, two name changes since the inception of StarOffice in 1985, one of which on the boundary of the closed-source office suite going open source, the other on a takeover by a known licence warrior is not bad and not too hard to follow.

LibreOffice, remember?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice

Symmetrically, every administration needs a form system and it annoys me that the French tax office didn’t open-source theirs, because it is decently good (Cerfa).

There actually is an open-source form system already: Démarches Simplifiées https://github.com/demarches-simplifiees/demarches-simplifie.... It's maintained by the French government and used by hundreds of administrations. Totally agree that Cerfa would benefit from being open too

.ODF is supposed to be the default

Not in the EU as a whole. Its down to states.

It has various levels of adoption in individual European countries and regions (in the EU and beyond) with a number (such as the UK) making it the standard for document exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption#Europe

First line of "What is EU OS":

> EU OS is not a project of the European Union, but it should be.

Just flagging this because a lot of comment here and anywhere else EU OS gets discussed, end up assuming this is affiliated with the EU in some way.

It's not affiliated in any way, so whatever you feel about this project, and the EU as a political institution, you probably shouldn't infer anything about one based on the other.

it's a trojan horse

The "EU" is not a political institution. It is a "a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe.".

The (main) political institutions of the EU are:

- the European Parliament,

- the European Council (of heads of state or government),

- the Council of the European Union (of member state ministers, a council for each area of responsibility),

- the European Commission,

- the Court of Justice of the European Union,

- the European Central Bank and

- the European Court of Auditors.

Thanks for clarifying, I guess I'd meant it, as in, "political thingy" rather than trying to designate some specific classification.

Should be Debian, not Fedora

SUSE would make more sense, being that the company that develops it is based in Germany.

From The FAQS - https://eu-os.eu/faq

Why does EU OS propose to rely on Fedora-based Linux distributions?

First of all, EU OS is not a product (yet), but only a Proof-of-Concept. The choice of Fedora-based Linux distributions or the desktop environment KDE is not a core concern as it does not impact much how admins manage users and their data, software and devices.

Nevertheless, EU OS cannot avoid to pick one base Linux distribution to start with. The founding project member Robert has previously used:

opensuse at home from about 2007 to 2024 (in 2007 distributed on 8 DVDs or so) debian at the university department from 2007 to 2013 scientific linux at some research department from 2009 to 2011 opensuse Kalpa (in alpha) at home in 2024 Fedora Kinoite (stable) at home since 2024

Is EU OS a project of the European Union?

Right now, EU OS is not a project of the European Union. Instead, EU OS is a community-led Proof-of-Concept. This means it is lead by a community of volunteers and enthusisasts.

The project goal is to become a project of the European Commission in the future and use https://code.europa.eu. For this EU OS is in touch with the public administration on member state and EU level. So far, EU OS relies on https://gitlab.com/eu-os.

What we need at EU is a full build chain, infra and resourcing for one of the top-tier Linux distributions. Given the nature of Linux that's no easy thing but we're well placed to deliver on it. And I'd argue that it'll be cheaper to fund all of that as part of a generational (20 year) transition away from Microsoft for all key and 90% of non-key governmental systems.

Why base it on Fedora if Red Hat is American?

OpenBSD it's Canadian and it suits everyone else.

Right? I'd expect it to be from SUSE.

It‘s a PoC demonstrating bootc (bootable containers). Fedora is furthest along at the moment.

They say the distro doesn't matter to them that much:

> The choice of Fedora-based Linux distributions or the desktop environment KDE is not a core concern as it does not impact much how admins manage users and their data, software and devices.

> Nevertheless, EU OS cannot avoid to pick one base Linux distribution to start with.

https://www.distrowiz.com/debianedu/

from norway?

or opensuse from germany.

They are still beholden to redhat in the usa? Makes sense to me.

While I applaud the effort, this always fails on the human factor, and hardware support.

I used to tell about some library efforts in Germany regarding the use of a SuSE based distro for their infrastructure, to be used by folks at the library.

Turns out that one of the things that got recently replaced, when new computers got in, was exactly that.

Now they run selected Windows apps in kiosk mode, because that was what their users used to complain about not being able to access at the library.

I think you are too pessimistic. Imho, it failed on the organizational factor. The lobbying from MS was intense, and abandoning MS was oddly forward looking then. I suspect things have changed and there is more impetus plus buy-in in the organizational and social context.

  ----------

The only upside of Windows is Office, which has better ergonomics than Libre Office. This is a solvable problem.

- In the short term, you can launch windows apps as RemoteApp in a hidden vm, and the application feels like a native Linux application in your window manager.

- In the longer term, you can pay 50 engineers to fix LibreOffice, and you still save money.

I am not speaking about Munich, rather some northern states.

Ah, my bad. You are talking about a particular library?

At least two, but since this is Internet I will leave the location as northern states.

The problem, historically, has been the dependency on Microsoft Office, which is a must for a lot of public sector offices and services. Maybe this way around can work, being that Microsoft have make a push to turn most of Office into web apps, they even nag you to switch to "New Outlook" which is a web browser with Outlook running inside.

Finally, a competitor to Red Star OS.

This is all sizzle no steak. Marketing without substance, frankly.

A proof-of-concept doesn't provide any value. For Linux to gain further adoption a gargantuan effort is needed to get things from 90% done (or 90% working) to fully working. Any Linux distribution is already suitable for government use. Manjaro, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian. They're all fine distros. The only remaining problem is quality. Things don't work or suddenly stop working for no apparent reason. For government use that's a deal-breaker. It's also a deal-breaker for gamers. Which is why SteamOS has been relentlessly fixing reliability issues. So if I had to bet on a linux distro going mainstream, it would be that one.

Do you work in modern enterprise fleet management?

Linux is fine for an individual - I've used it for over 25 years no problem.

I have no idea if modern desktop configuration management and centralised identity like mdm/intune/sccm/ad even exist, let alone how well they work in the real world

Your mention of SteamOS suggests that you don't understand the considerations governments and enterprises have in fleet management, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your statement.

> Things don't work or suddenly stop working for no apparent reason.

What are you talking about exactly? It's not my experience.

You are clearly not a front-end developer

This is just a shallow dismissal, which is against the HN guidelines.

I'm funnier on stage.

This seems unreasonably dismissive. Spitballing as to why:

* "Fedora-based" was skipped over. Or it wasn't, but you intuited something else from that term, maybe without the backdrop of Fedora's bootable containers or uBlue. Or with awareness of those tech, but without valuing their contributions to system stability (or the contributions of the broader "immutable"/"declarative" projects) as much as they perhaps warrant.

* You believe a govt end user's notion of "software quality" to matter more than (basically) any other stakeholder's notion. Or you don't recognize as intensely as I that simply having a URL to point at (or more importantly for older bureaucrats: a PDF / PDF printability) is a multiplying force on the ability to get in front of someone who makes policy decisions.

Why didn’t they name it os.eu?

the price of that domain would be in the $50-100k alone

eu-os.eu ≈ US.eu

It would be better to use and contribute to an existing distro than fork a new one. Debian is mostly European these days.

Like several others have said, this is probably gonna turn out like all the past EU IT projects.

They had to choose KDE, I guess, because it is the most high-complexity desktop environment…

Why not CBL Mariner? I bet ms can sell support for this to corrupt politicians as usual. Done deal.

Let's replace a country-based OS with a region-named OS. Sounds dumb, tbh.

after 30 years of MS corruption in all public sectors, I hope this changes things

I don't think the EU needs an OS. What it needs from a strategic standpoint are a webbrowser and clones of the various US based services (search, AI, office/productivity).

This is important because of EU's strong stance on privacy. And to protect against takedowns like what happened to the chief prosecutor of the ICC (Trump told Microsoft to block their account).

The EU needs a desktop OS, without being vulnerable to adversaries. The server side of Linux is pretty well taken care for by a wide range of commercial and personal contributors, but the desktop part rests on a much smaller foundation imho.

They don't build from nothing. KDE is a fantastic Desktop Environment, that would be an upgrade in itself over Windows. But if you have like millions of public servants (police, courts, governments, etc), you want to be sure that what they use meet your requirements.

I think this should have been done earlier, but late is better than never.

Beware: the US has a grip on the FSF and Linux Foundation.

I'm sorry but I don't know why there is such a big push for this..

Listed on the https://eu-os.eu/goals#motivation

> synergy effects lead to tax savings, because there is no per-seat license cost

How much are we talking ? Also there are good reasons that large organisations use enterprise software such as (I think) redHat in this case.. It's dedicated support mainly and security.

Maybe I'm being too cynical, I love open source and absolutely a proponent of its benefits, however I do know when sometimes it's not the right fit.

> independence in scheduling software migrations and potential hardware upgrades

Independence and much higher overhead to ensure everything goes smoothly.

> Edit : It's seems its Windows and not RedHat [0]

[0] https://gitlab.com/eu-os/eu-os.gitlab.io/-/issues/10#note_24...

Big +1. Company margins are real but they're not orders of magnitude. If you're spending $100MM/year on a corporate product, trying to spend less than let's say $80MM/year simply means that you're not serious about the migration. I wish they would say, "we will take all this money and invest it into making the new OSS product better for our internal customers (government office workers). There will be no savings for now, we will just get more sovereignty and control for about the same spend.

The idea is indeed interesting (minus the email client and a few more bits imho).

But the risk is known: https://xkcd.com/927/

s/standard/distro/g

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44223208

Why not openSUSE? ffs

“Welcome to Microsoft XYZ. This is not a Microsoft product but it should be”

FAQ:

> Is EU OS another Linux distribution that I can try out?

> EU OS is not another Linux distribution. EU OS is a community-led Proof-of-Concept, which employs existing Linux distributions. The challenge of the proof is not that an individual can use Linux on their own computer. Instead, the challenge is to proof [prove] that an admin team can manage users and their data, software and devices with or without Active Directory and without Microsoft Windows within a migration period of rather 2 years than 20 years.

> Instead, the challenge is to proof [prove] that an admin team can manage users and their data, software and devices with or without Active Directory and without Microsoft Windows within a migration period of rather 2 years than 20 years.

Get rid of consultancy companies and do the change in house. In my experience, consultancy companies solution for everything is to integrate complex solutions (Microsoft, Oracle, ...) an charge as much as possible per hour. They have all the big-tech certifications possible, and that is what they want to implement. It is a the fox guarding the hen situtation.

The Dutch government literally put out an RFP for 'Microsoft Outlook licenses'. Not mail clients, not email services, but a specific company's product. In an RFP.

They shouldn’t have any specific Linux distro mentioned on their frontpage. It’s confusing and might imply they they prefer one over the other.

I’m also confused why they don’t allow non-Linux viable OS alternatives. Some may be better for some uses.

I guess it makes sense to leave the door open, but what OS do you think they should consider? the mainline options basically:

Windows: status quo, dominant on desktop

Linux: investing, dominant on servers

MacOS: American, hates enterprises

ChromeOS: American, limited, uses Linux kernel.

The long tail alternative options include:

FreeBSD/OpenBSD: ditches the Linux kernel but supports much of the Linux software ecosystem

ReactOS: open source windows clone

Haiku: beta, not targeting enterprises

Redox: micro kernel OS written in rust, not ready for production

Seems like the *BSD family is the most viable of these, at least in the short term.

Redox could provide a second-mover advantage with fundamental security upgrades.

[flagged]

this is not an EU driven initiative, but further I agree.

I'm opposed to any common solution. It invites automated zero-day exploits that would DoS everything, everywhere, at the same time.

Unlike everyone using Windows...

Or the effect is opposite because some much is on stake and there is money without profit requirement.

What did you think EternalBlue was ?? Microsoft is literally conspiring with governments to create backdoors

The server hosting the image will make for a juicy target for foreign adversaries

As is always the case.

Probably about as juicy as the servers MS uses to build Windows.

For it to be truly compatible with the EU, it would need to come with backdoors hardcoded.

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