Of course there's a lot to criticize and also to appreciate about the EU. But this is supposed to be a forum for intelligent, thoughtful discussion and yet as soon as the EU gets mentioned it basically turns into reddit.
If the headline was "EU invests 100B into open source to further independence from US", I imagine things would be different. But right now it's "we have intentions to have plans about tech and open source in the EU sometime in the future".
The agencies downstream that will spend 4 million euros comparing LibreOffice with OpenOffice are the ones doing some of the work.
I think it’s okay for the institutions to signal something positive, as long as they actually back it up later.
You dislike criticism? I find criticism an important part of discourse and discussion. HN is very clearly not anything like reddit - just the insane amount of censorship on reddit alone, is already one argument against that claim. Many more could be given. I have been using reddit in the past for many years, so I know how reddit changed. Not that everything is perfect on hackernews; I dislike the "you are posting too much" limitation, for instance. But we don't have over-eager censor-mods here whereas that was locking down numerous interesting discussions on reddit.
With regards to the EU situation: the EU is in a very strange situation. On the one hand it is doing good things; this then gets cancelled by the EU commission acting as a pure lobbyist group, as well as a huge army of bureaucrats who want more and more money and dream about assimilating more and more countries, which makes zero sense. Whether the EU will succeed with regards to their open source strategy or not, who knows. What I do know is that individual countries, such as France or the Netherlands, are quite intelligent when it comes to good decisions (Germany is absolutely undermined by lobbyists, so it is totally paralysed here); I am not convinced the EU is in a similar situation. It would have to be reformed, but people in Brussels don't want to see their job axxed away, so nothing will improve here.
My recommendation is that if you are unhappy, go and talk about it - but don't expect others to turn to your assumptions about how a discussion should happen when it comes to the EU, because they may not share your opinion here.
No, I love criticism, as long as it's balanced and thoughtful, and invites discussion rather than being knee-jerk reactionary. Please read my comment more carefully.
You forgot to add "and it matches my worldview of things". Knee-jerk criticism is very fine, like "Microsoft sucks" anytime someone mentions Microsoft. You can just ignore it and move on.
However, you're still missing the salient point of my comment - that is, overwhelmingly the comments on any post related to the EU here are low effort, negative, reactionary. Honestly, I feel like you're not willing to engage with the point. It's not even the negativity that's my main issue here, it's the overwhelming low-effort, thoughtless nature of it which prevents any attempt at genuine discussion (positive or negative). It's groupthink, reddit style, and while HN is far from perfect there's almost no other subject that brings out this kind of reaction. Except for React, maybe.
I want the US tech community to continue thinking of us as some sort of technological backwater. Ridiculing and deriding us, so they never see as any place where they are welcome. Since given the last ten years, they pretty much aren't. There's basically little to nothing that US tech services have to offer Europe.
Most EU initiatives have damaged everyday UX on the web and in tech. Yes, some malicious compliance has played a role by over-reacting to well-intended regulations. But overall the EU has brought this upon itself.
This specific Open Source Strategy memo is typical. It's in fact not a strategy but a list of key goals and requirements, put together in technocratic jargon. It will have zero effect on the actual open source ecosystem.
Are you really trying to suggest that GDPR and PECR are bad pieces of legislation because businesses have decided that they’d prefer to give you a bad UX?
- pay "ridiculous price" or accept ads & tracking instead of allowing to disable tracking
the second one i experience daily and it's driving me nuts. i am sure it is actually illegal, but i have yet to find an explanation on why it should be allowed or a convincing legal argument in why it actually violates the rules. something that i could send to violators.
https://noyb.eu/en/frequently-asked-questions-about-pay-or-o...
https://noyb.eu/en/nordic-media-giant-schibsted-switches-pay...
https://noyb.eu/en/court-decides-pay-or-okay-derstandardat-i...
but the banner is still there so they are still fighting.
link found thanks to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48492358
Or you have been brainwashed by the billions spent annually to make you believe stories about bendy bananas and occult initiation ceremonies as a condition of being a member.
Not for me, my opinion of things like GDPR and forcing usbc on phones gives me the impression that the EU is holding corporations accountable and looking out for normal people.
Its been mentioned before but i feel like while alot of negative views might be organic, alot are also the result of tech companies' smear campaigns against the EU
It's interesting because not that long ago nobody cared about what europe did in tech. Or more like everybody was fine with the fact that europe imported computers and exported something else. It was like that forever. I am not sure where this is coming from. It almost seems like even these weak efforts might mess up with somebodys business.
Definitely the most cynical video he ever released.
Sooner or later Europe will wake up. Right now we still have too many lobbyists but this will change - at the latest when key lobbyists are put in jail for many decades. Sadly this also means the current EU commission has to go to jail too.
https://fosstodon.org seems like a good fit but is invite-only
Free to copy this code base https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters
- CRA (cyber resiliency act): Manufacturers must handle and release security patches for vulnerabilities, and developers are required to report actively on exploited vulnerabilities and breaches.
- PLD (Product Liability Directive): A failure to provide critical security updates or the presence of exploitable vulnerabilities can now legally constitute a "defect" and if defective software causes physical harm or property damage, manufacturers are strictly liable and cannot contractually exclude or limit this liability.
And the kicker is this: Non-commercial open-source software is generally exempt from these commercial liability frameworks. However, if an open-source component is integrated into a commercial, for-profit product, the responsibility shifts to the corporate manufacturer.
So good luck making some money of your open source project where the risk outweighs any potential profit, or integrate an open source project into your commercial offering.
In case it is unclear from my tone, I am genuinely curious.
- CRA mandates vulnerability patches for products. This puts undue burden on manufacturers whose products are out of the production cycle. Basically the EU wants updates for products no longer manufactured.
- PLD requires fixes for products deemed to have critical vulnerabilities, again, if the product is not manufactured anymore, why should the manufacturer have to support who knows what old software?
Then, for OSS it is even worse: you have a pet project, you give it away for free, it has success, you want to sell a paid version of it. Automatically you're on the hook for vulnerability fixing. Which takes time. And if you're in the early stages of maybe selling a few copies here and there, the time spent fixing stuff will outweigh any winnings.
Than again with "you're on the hook if you ship commercial products using some OSS components" - either no one ships OSS packages with their commercial software given the advent of coding agents that can replicate OSS software functionality, or there will be a ton of forks, with vendors claiming they fixed the problem in their own way.
With all this said, then the EU has the nerve to come and say "use OSS" because freedom and BS.
"Support uptake of open source alternatives to proprietary solutions together with Member States and the Digital Commons EDIC — cloud, workplace tools, secure e-mail, decentralised social media."
BTW, the EU also plans for a energy transformation, being a military powerhouse, surveillance state - what else could be wish into reality?
How about a healthy native birth rate and relatively low levels of immigration?
But to create that many strategies, you're gonna need a huge EU bureaucracy. So better create a strategy to reduce the growth of EU bureaucracy, too.
My impression in general is that there is rather a very EU friendly view here on HN in general, but HN is critical of everything.
So I also say, lot's of nice words, great that they at least start so late with that now, but more concrete steps would be more welcome.
"Making public administrations anchor users and contributors to open source, through procurement guidance, open-source friendly tendering, strengthening the Open Source Programme Office and its networks, reusable public digital assets and by embedding openness and sovereignty in digital investment decisions"
Because this for example sounds great. But is it very concrete? It sounds like it, but I don't see how it is.