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Comment by petcat | Hacker News Reader

The reality of the matter is that it is virtually impossible for Europe to even begin to displace Apple or Google devices, and especially not operating systems and all the ecosystem that goes along with it.

The EU politicians are just publicly paying lip-service to "digital sovereignty" while they quietly hope this all just blows over when Trump is gone in 2 years.

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> it is virtually impossible for Europe to even begin to displace Apple or Google devices

It's hard for sure but they are not even trying, the non-duopoly alternatives are run by hobbyists in their free time and just get shit on by EU bureaucrats

What do you expect - the EU to centrally plan a phone OS? They are capitalist with regulations, you know, not communist. Someone has to actually make one themselves.

Most of the free hardware and software alternatives are already European, like MNT, and GrapheneOS. They just don't have market share.

What do I expect? Mandating open bootloaders by law, banning device attestation and applying existing antitrust legislation.

Then if they could give a few millions to some open source communities, that could be the cherry on top

Now that would be pretty good. I thought there was already an unlockable bootloader mandate but it seems I was mistaken. Most phone makers openly violate GPL and don't get punished, too.

> are already European, like MNT, and GrapheneOS

GrapheneOS is Canadian.

After France drove them away, right?

Agreed, I doubt that a mega-behemoth like Google or Microsoft could emerge in Europe. Especially not on a compressed timescale.

But if they really wanted digital verification without the surveillance capitalism built in, I’m sure there are plenty of companies that could do it. Especially if it was around an open source framework.

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