Comment by hanshenning | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hanshenning | Hacker News Reader

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You're not wrong, but this is actually what they're pursuing; the article just leaves it out.

> The goal is not only to save costs, but above all to gain digital sovereignty.

> [It's true] that open source is not necessarily cheaper, [..] it requires investment. But the money flows into internal infrastructure, into the further development of Nextcloud, LibreOffice, and other similar systems, instead of proprietary ones.

> Schleswig-Holstein pursues an "upstream-only strategy," meaning that developments flow directly back into international projects. The state does not want to maintain its own forks, but rather contribute all improvements directly to the main projects, thereby contributing to development for the benefit of the general public.[1]

On a side note, the real key to the project's success is that it's supported by a coalition of the conservative and green parties. They actually value digital sovereignty and longterm cost savings. Contrast that with Bavaria, where the MS lobbyist managed to get them to sign a longterm Office 365 contract…

[1]https://www-heise-de.translate.goog/hintergrund/Interview-Wi...

Thank you for providing this valuable context. I am hoping to advocate for OSS transition in my workplace and these examples go a long way to help make my case.

I am thinking about opening my own shop, distinguished by digitally sovereign offerings, for instance, Stormshield over Cisco, Proxmox over VMware, Matrix/Element over Microsoft Teams, Nextcloud over SharePoint...

I've been doing m365 and azure for more than three years by now and I just feel terrible. Especially regarding some of our customers, which are small gGmbH (kind of NGO). Instead of making a secure, privacy focused offering we just sell them the usual m365 package. We basically push them into the data industrial complex just to get some collab tools and mail.

> Stormshield over Cisco

Stormshield is a very good product but it's mainly designed for industrial scenarios and lacks some features that are essential for an enterprise NGFW (i.e. the protocol inspection covers very few protocols compared to PA/Checkpoint/etc). Unfortunately the enterprise NGFW scenario is dominated by US or Israeli companies, even if some niches brands like Stormshield for OT and Clavister for telcos are Europeans

Stormshield firewalls offer a plethora of IPS protections and signatures, not just OT related ones. There are different licenses, offering varying protections and signatures.

Stormshield firewalls can certainly be used in enterprise settings. OT environments are an added bonus where Stormshield firewalls can be used as a protective layer.

Stormshield's IPS is its major strength, being very well integrated in the overall firewall design. The whole firewall rulebase is designed in terms of its IPS; I am not aware of any firewall on the market that has such a nicely integrated IPS.

Also, at the point where one runs out of IPS options to configure, whereby I'm not referring to signatures in the general sense of the term, and one also has adapted all of Stormshield's available signatures to the needs of the particular environment, the real fun of creating new custom IPS signatures begins.

Stormshield's roots date back to 1998's NETASQ, and so I would say they are of a similar pedigree as Check Point, in terms of their history.

Disclaimer: I'm a Stormshield Platinum Partner and hold a CSNTS.

What makes StormShield "digitally sovereign"? The other names you mention are open source- but from what I can tell, StormShield is not?

StormShield are a French company, and a subsidiary of Airbus.

So I guess "digitally sovereign" in the European Union could mean using a combination of GPL style free, open source (BSD and other similar licences), proprietary European "homegrown" products.

I guess Genua is another good contender in this market.

TBH there will likely be a _huge_ demand for "digital sovereignty consulting" over the next while, especially in the EU (and maybe also Canada).

Here in Denmark, the previously unthinkable is happening: because of Schleswig-Holstein's leadership in moving to OSS, the Danes are now seeking to learn from the Germans (or at least, that particular set of Germans) about digitalisation! That trend, plus the Danish government's all-in-on-vendors/consultants approach to digitalisation, will likely open a sizeable market - and the traditional vendors like Netcompany have taken a large beating in public opinion themselves, so it's a good time to start something in this direction.

And at the Digital Tech Summit in Copenhagen this year, digital sovereignty (and the lack thereof) was a very prominent theme across both public and private sector talks. As was the comparative advantage the EU has in _trust_, and how that helps e.g. businesses around cybersecurity, privacy-oriented SaaS, and data management expand even outside the EU - which makes it extra infuriating to see continued political interest in things like Chat Control and cracking down on GrapheneOS. This trust is IMHO pretty much the only advantage the EU has in the global tech marketplace, and we're busy throwing it away.

I wonder if there is some particular MBA/managerial jargon (in the sense it grabs their attention) to use when talking about this stuff.

Power differences, contractual leverage, vendor lock-in, motivation versus costs to make changes, etc.

Vendor risk management. It's the process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating the risks associated with engaging third-party vendors or suppliers.

Check out "Europe as a Software Colony" [1], it's an excellent documentary including about the Munich case specifically.

Then watch the Scale 22x talk of the former Mexican CTO, because those stories are so close to industrial espionage it's absurd what kind of influence Microsoft has over diplomats and ambassadors. [2]

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg

[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=kLSHtx3Wi_M

Let's not forget that since Snowden we know former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was spied on by the NSA.

German govt has been a bit embarrassed by this.

++ When an EU outlet says, "Given the annual savings, this sum will pay for itself in less than a year. In the past, the state transferred millions to the US company Microsoft, primarily for the use of office software and other programs."

You know they want sovereignty.

WRT the criticism on this move by "the opposition" saying, ""It may be that on paper 80 percent of workplaces have been converted. But far fewer than 80 percent of employees can now work with them properly.""

I think this natural pressure will also be helpful for re-tooling IT infra and support companies to being more sovereign.

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