The European Commission has opened a 'call for evidence' to help shape its European Open Digita [...]
The European Commission has opened a "call for evidence" to help shape its European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy. The commission is looking to reduce its dependence on software from non-EU countries:
The EU faces a significant problem of dependence on non-EU countries in the digital sphere. This reduces users' choice, hampers EU companies' competitiveness and can raise supply chain security issues as it makes it difficult to control our digital infrastructure (both physical and software components), potentially creating vulnerabilities including in critical sectors. In the last few years, it has been widely acknowledged that open source – which is a public good to be freely used, modified, and redistributed – has the strong potential to underpin a diverse portfolio of high-quality and secure digital solutions that are valid alternatives to proprietary ones. By doing so, it increases user agency, helps regain control and boost the resilience of our digital infrastructure.
The feedback period runs until midnight (Brussels time)
February 3, 2026. The commission seeks input from all interested
stakeholders, "in particular the European open-source community
(including individual contributors, open-source companies and
foundations), public administrations, specialised business sectors,
the ICT industry, academia and research institutions
".
Read the original article
Comments
By flowerthoughts 2026-01-099:5115 reply 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 not something we're interested in doing for free. This excerpt here:
> In the last few years, it has been widely acknowledged that open source – which is a public good to be freely used, modified, and redistributed – has
suggests they see it as free candy, rather than the result of love and hard work, provided for free because it's nice. Pay for what you use, especially at the government level.
Of course, I strongly encourage the European governments to invest in open source. And if you're interested in giving money, I'm interested in doing work. Same as ever.
> 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 these services, or anyone can use official Web clients, but none of the code is open source.
This is in contrast to previous governments that tried to implement all of this using proprietary standards where the companies hired were paid billions to deliver a system and they ended up owning the data exchange protocol and a client they distributed in binary only form. And they also profited from commercial software that implemented their proprietary protocols.
That worked (for the company hired)for taxes and they made billions. But for other stuff like medical, when they had no way to sell their proprietary standards they wasted billions and years of time and delivered nothing. Then subsequent govt threw the entire project out and built it on open standards.
So based on this experience I think using well documented open data exchange standards is much more important than software itself being open source.
Who cares the server side software is open source if you still can't submit your taxes with your own python script?
By localuser13 2026-01-0911:421 reply >None of the code is open source
Well, not all, for example mObywatel was recently open-sourced (in a ridiculous way, but still).
I think you raise some important points. In my opinion, a lot of code funded by public money should be open-sourced, but it's not as clear-cut as some people believe. I'll use this comment to point out some of fallacies that people responding to you make:
>Also open source government code means other governments can fork it, overall lowering implementation costs, while still keeping code sovereignty.
This is completely unrelated. French government won't deploy a Polish public health management website just because they found it on Github. For projects of such magnitude you need deep mutual cooperation between both governments, and a lot of changes. Making the code open-source is the least important part, the code can be just shared privately.
In fact, there are many such European code, data and information sharing initiatives. There are meetings and conferences where countries can discuss this on a technical level. The code is shared, just not via public channels.
>The government - and taxpayers - should care that having closed-source software means they are tied to the company that wrote it forever, so changes and bugfixes will be much more expensive.
If a private company owns code used by government for critical purposes and can take the government hostage it's outrageous and taxpayers should riot. This probably happens[1], but most code is either written by government itself, or at least government owns the code and can switch contractors if necessary.
In particular, AFAIR the government code we're discussing right now was written by COI (~central informatics department), which is a public institution.
[1] For example, governments use Azure and GCP, even though - to me - it's clearly shortsighted. Fortunately there was a wake-up call recently, and it changes slowly.
By PurpleRamen 2026-01-0911:56 >> Also open source government code means other governments can fork it, overall lowering implementation costs, while still keeping code sovereignty. > This is completely unrelated.
This is an option which does sometimes happen. And there is motivation to make happen more often, at least for EU-wide services. And there is also the side that it's doesn't have to happen between countries, it could be also happen the local level, like between administration of cities in the same country. The main reasoning here is more about spreading awarness and building the mindset that sharing code on all levels and working together even on such internal tools, can be good and should be increased.
> French government won't deploy a Polish public health management website just because they found it on Github.
Some governments have also their own platforms, specifically for co-working on code accross administrations. They are usually not public for reasons.
> For projects of such magnitude you need deep mutual cooperation between both governments, and a lot of changes. Making the code open-source is the least important part, the code can be just shared privately.
You still have to put it under a licence when you are co-working, even when it's shared privatly. Open Source does not neccessaly mean that the source is automatically accessable to the whole world.
By orwin 2026-01-0911:06 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.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-0910:272 reply So your argument here is that while the software can be open source, it matters less, if whatever the software does isn't actually an open standard? Wouldn't "being open source with own custom protocol" essentially be as open as "open source or not, but software implements open standards" anyways?
Especially for the use case they’re talking about. It makes sense to have open standards for something like filing taxes so many companies can compete.
Having source code for the tax system itself is interesting, but I think the market for “run software for processing incoming taxes for polish citizens” is exactly one.
Unless they expect pull requests, which could be fun, but as OSS maintainers know, it’s a ton of work and boy would there be a ton of spam on something like this.
By cylemons 2026-01-0913:26 Maybe auditing companies can run their own tax servers?
By vladms 2026-01-0914:37 Many protocols (even open) are complex, and partially undocumented.
It would be nice to have both (open source and open protocol), but I kind of agree that if we should push for one, an open (decently explained) standard will probably be easier, simpler and with longer term impact, not to mention the interoperability benefits between countries.
By damnitbuilds 2026-01-0910:30 "Who cares the server side software is open source if you still can't submit your taxes with your own python script?"
The government - and taxpayers - should care that having closed-source software means they are tied to the company that wrote it forever, so changes and bugfixes will be much more expensive.
By saidinesh5 2026-01-0912:212 reply > Who cares the server side software is open source if you still can't submit your taxes with your own python script?
The management, the government and the eventually the tax payers.
If the government wants to add a small change to the tax code, if it's not an open source software, they'd have to hire the same company that wrote it in the first place. That's when the companies tend to jack up the prices to crazy numbers.
I have personally witnessed companies winning the initial government contracts by undercutting everyone and then charging them 10X for even the tiniest of modifications. Some times the companies even flat out reject the future contracts because they are stuck with a better project elsewhere and the government is stuck with useless old binary.
If the server side software is open source, depending on the policy, you can also submit your changes to that software that lets you submit your taxes with your own python script.
By ablob 2026-01-0913:00 I think it can be a reasonable assumption that the government has access to the code, while it is not being open to the public. There is a difference between "visible to everyone" (i.e. open source) and "visible to selected parties".
Having a different company do contract work does not require the source to be open, it just requires that the government owns it (as they get to choose what to do with it then).
Also, if no company is on a payroll because they are stuck with better projects, what makes you think someone that is not familiar with the code base would accept a merge request from an unknown party? Or if it was accepted, what makes you think this wouldn't immediately be abused to create loopholes and vulnerabilities?
By xorcist 2026-01-0918:28 > If the government wants to add a small change to the tax code [...] they'd have to hire the same company that wrote it
This is a very strange statement and you probably have some specific situation in mind that isn't really representative.
Normally when you hire people to write your code they do a work for hire, unless your contract says otherwise, you own the rights. There are some minor exceptions, typically for countries that treat commercial and artistic copyright differently, but that's it. I've been hired to add changes to people's software thousands of times, and it's never been on the table that I get some kind of ownership of their source code.
The license said source code is under is completely irrelevant. Especially in this question of tax authorities. That source code is normally not under some public license at all because it's their internal processes anyway, they may change at any time and the employ a number of programmers to do so. Plus a handful of consultants.
By jagged-chisel 2026-01-0911:315 reply > … public good to be freely used, modified, and redistributed
That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.” I do understand the potential for misinterpretation, but one could easily add “after paying for it” and those freedoms don’t change.
By earthcreed 2026-01-0913:01 English centric, although other languages may have collapsed gratis and liber into a single word.
> That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.”
It occurs to me that this is a rather US-centric analogy.
By gr4vityWall 2026-01-0913:531 reply I see it as English-centric, rather than US-centric. That differentiation isn't necessary in most (all?) languages.
Adopting the word "gratis" when the speaker means "at no monetary cost" also helps clarify things.
By nandomrumber 2026-01-0914:141 reply Would it be more correct to say it doesn’t necessarily mean free as in beer?
Someone can give you a free beer and a complimentary license to manufacture and distribute that same beer, and even make changes to the recipe.
By gr4vityWall 2026-01-0915:44 > Would it be more correct to say it doesn’t necessarily mean free as in beer
Yes, I believe so.
Free Software should rename to Liberty Software. Instead, advocates loaned Spanish "libre" in the ugly FLOSS acronym (Free/Libre Open Source Software). If only we used "liberty" then we could stop quibbling over the multiple meanings of "free" and just talk about software liberty.
"Free as in bonus" vs "free as in liberty".
later, ... there are 14 competing jargon files.
"Free software" is a fine descriptor. It's needlessly confusing to repeat that "beer as in slurred speech" thing, though. Free software can be free "as in beer"[0], but the way it gets said makes it sound like it zero cost software is an anti-goal, rather than pointing out that it's not the true goal. Then the "free as in speech" thing is kind of pointless because you can just say "free as in freedom".
Free software is about fundamental computer freedom -- freedom to own your computer, inspect and modify, etc. -- we already have this word.
[0] where who why free beer ever? 0% relatable, 0/10 would still like a free beer though
Newcomers keep tripping on Free Software vs Freeware, therefore "Free Software" doesn't describe well. We could call it Freedom Software. (There now exist 15 competing jargon files.)
By c0ndu17 2026-01-100:08
The current socio-political climate is actually making this analogy less US-centric by the day :(
edit: I'm specifically referring to people losing their jobs and similar retaliations due to being on the left, or making public statements that the current administration and supporters don't like.
It didn't start when it was people losing their jobs on the right?
Brandon Eich's political donation comes to mind.
By danaris 2026-01-1011:21 "People losing their jobs on the right" can, in every case I'm aware of, be reworded as "people losing their jobs because they oppose basic human rights for certain categories of people."
Over the past few decades, and especially since about 2008, "the right" has become the refuge for every kind of bigotry (especially, though not solely, in the USA). Trying to defend that bigotry by crying about political neutrality is...well, to be polite I'll just say it's pretty ugly and leave it at that.
By b40d-48b2-979e 2026-01-0914:533 reply [flagged]
By Forgeties79 2026-01-0915:44 Not as wild of a claim as you might think, as opposition to gay marriage falls starkly along political lines in the US. If you are a republican and you support gay marriage, you are solidly in the minority (41%). 12% of democrats oppose it.
> In May 2025, a record-high 88% of Democrats supported same-sex marriage, support from independents stood at 76%, while Republican support dipped back down to 41%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_mar...
By tremon 2026-01-0915:30 Next you're going to tell us that religious fundamentalism isn't mostly a right-wing feature either.
By mperham 2026-01-0916:40 [flagged]
By johnmaguire 2026-01-0914:541 reply Brandon Eich resigned.
Due to discrimination and bullying. There goes freedom of expression out of the door. Fortunately that crazy ship has long sailed and nowadays he'd have enough support to resist and publicly voice his opinions without personal attacks.
By johnmaguire 2026-01-0916:23 I think there is a very large difference between citizen activism (i.e. boycotts which can lead to resignations) and government authoritarianism. I have no problem with people exercising their right to free speech - including both Brandon Eich, and Firefox users.
No government official spoke up to have Brandon Eich fired, or bullied him or anything like that. His defenestration wasn't driven by government. Brandon Eich said some things, and the community around him judged those things and reacted to it. That's means that we're not talking about free speech any more. You have no right to speak and force other people to listen without social consequence, you do have a right to speak without the government retaliating. But other people are free to react to your speech as well, and to speak out in opposition to you.
A lawyer once described what you are calling Free Speech as merely "Protection of the First Speech." You believe that Brandon Eich should be able to speak (the first speech), but that the other people around him should not be able to say what they want in reaction to it (the second speech). Brandon Eich did say things without any government retaliation- and the people who worked at Mozilla didn't want to be associated with that, and so he chose to resign before the organization fell apart. Because those people around Mozilla have free speech rights as well, they are not forced to associate with Mozilla.
Similarly, a company choosing to fire an employee because of their speech is not really a free-speech issue. The company can fire you for pretty much any reason (at least in America- some countries have stronger worker protections), because they don't want to be associated with you any more. On the other hand, if a Government official suggests that you should be fired for something you said in your private life, then your free speech rights are being violated, even if the company does not fire you. It is only when the government gets involved that it becomes a Free Speech issue.
Obligatory XKCD to help you understand why you are wrong about what "Free Speech" means: https://xkcd.com/1357/
By nunobrito 2026-01-0919:37 No need for "government official". There were plenty of non-government official branches such as media and social networks that were demonstrated to work as shadow tools for imposing heavy censorship around specific agendas. Up until the recent election so was the case for the large majority of mainstream social networks and legacy media.
The whole corona fabrication wasn't that long ago when governments directly mandated to silent dissident voices (even the scientific ones) and push a whole group of normal people into burning anyone who'd point out the obvious inconsistencies.
I invite you to google for news articles reporting on his donations prior to his removal from Mozilla.
this is my favorite (mainly because they also call out donations to Ron Paul.) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controver...
While no politician commented directly, acting like it was just his peers and not part of national political conversation is silly.
By johnmaguire 2026-01-0920:301 reply The First Amendment right exists in large part to enable and encourage non-governmental news reporting - to avoid a world in which government officials can dictate "reality" or "truth."
The Guardian is actually a British publication, which is a bit orthogonal from the original discussion of US free speech. It might be more accurate to say that this was part of an international political conversation. This is because Bradon Eich, the leader of an organization which provides products internationally, made public donations to political groups that seek to strip rights from others. He has a first amendment right to do so.
As OP states, the rest of the world has a right (in the US, legally; elsewhere, perhaps morally) to respond to Brandon Eich, and Mozilla. If they believe that his views may influence the organization negatively - either due to bad press or through his other behaviors within the organization - they are also granted free speech to call out this behavior.
What we are seeing now is actual government agencies and officials working hard to remove people from their jobs - both in the public and private sectors - in response to views that don't align with their own.
It's not clear to me what your argument is exactly.
By dizlexic 2026-01-0921:30 My argument is that he contributed to a ballot initiative that passed (meaning the majority supported it), but he was still targeted and lost his job because media platforms targeted him.
To quote Andrew Sullivan > "McCarthyism applied by civil actors".
When people with large platforms target you, you're just as screwed regardless of their status as elected officials. To be outraged by one and excuse the other is laughable.
By burnermore 2026-01-0917:01 Its not just left. Right had to face this too. As a moderate, it's hilarious sometimes that one side would do something and when the other side does something similar, they are all up in arms about it.
We should be allowed to discuss openly without being worried of losing job and humiliated.
Right now, I cannot discuss openly. Majority are silent. And loud ones are a minority.
Kevin hart losing Oscar hosting for a comment 12 some years ago. People who tried to cancel Eminem for his old songs and Rowan Atkinson's speech comes to mind on the top of my head.
Getting offended is a YOU problem. Not a me problem.
Until it's possible for us from both sides can talk openly, these will continue. Just like opposition political parties when one side is in more power, they will try and punish the other.
By Fire-Dragon-DoL 2026-01-0915:56 Ah, this is the first time I understand the analogy because my mother tongue has two different words for "free", so I did not realize there was a need to differentiate
By waffleiron 2026-01-0916:512 reply Does the US have free beer?!
By mindslight 2026-01-0918:03 We have some beer you couldn't get me to drink for free. Does that count?
By pc86 2026-01-0917:33 It'd be a lot better if we did :)
By ozim 2026-01-0916:27 Well if let’s say local government like municipalities are paying for school software where you can check your child ren grades.
If there is API I should be able to make my own mobile app to access data or use other app.
Providers push ads and do shitty stuff to block any and all 3rd party access.
If it is that bad business just go away.
Neither beer nor speech were the topics of discussion. "Free as in speech rather than free as in beer" is an analogy commonly used to specify that you're talking about freedom rather than money.
By swiftcoder 2026-01-0912:483 reply Being the only Romance language that doesn't have separate words for "libre" and "gratis" (liberté and gratuit, etc), has its downsides
By irishcoffee 2026-01-0916:01 I could make an argument that "Complimentary" would be analogous to gratis in this context.
By swiftcoder 2026-01-0917:24 I mean, yes and no? In common speech we certainly lean more on Germanic vocabulary (and grammar!), but the dictionary overall has a lot more French/Latin-derived vocabulary than it does Germanic - many of them overly formal/technical for daily speech
(Entertainingly, modern German also adopted the Latin-rooted "gratis")
>That doesn’t mean “free as in beer,” but “free as in speech.”
what the hell does that mean
Today, we take the term "open source" for granted, but this wasn't always the case. There wasn't a single, universally accepted term to describe software that was freely shareable. "Free software" was one of the terms used, but it wasn't clear to non-programmers how this was different from proprietary software that was downloadable without having to pay for it. If you're not a programmer anyway, how should one type of "free software" be different from another?
Proponents of what we now call "open source" wanted to distinguish between two senses of the word "free". One sense is not having to pay for something, as in "Come over to my party, the beer is free." Anther sense is "I can criticize the government, because the country I live in is free." People in the free software and open source movement began to phrase the dichotomy in these terms to illustrate how one sense of the word "free" is much more important than the other. The fact that you don't have to pay for some piece of software is nice, but what's more important is that you aren't beholden to the company that developed it.
By CuriousSkeptic 2026-01-0918:37 > Proponents of what we now call "open source" wanted to distinguish between two senses of the word "free"
Some would argue its a little deeper than that
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
By Jgoauh 2026-01-0916:19 thanks this is very clear !
By brudgers 2026-01-0913:43 By patmorgan23 2026-01-0916:42 Free to use vs free to do what ever you want with
By nandomrumber 2026-01-0914:16 I too struggled to understand this when I first came across it.
By meheleventyone 2026-01-0913:27 Something that costs you nothing versus a freedom.
By Jgoauh 2026-01-0916:20 wow you caught me
By nandomrumber 2026-01-0914:19 [flagged]
Many projects made with government money are developed under the EUPL. Including some of the ones I've worked on. Oddly enough, they aren't available for download anywhere.
By nandomrumber 2026-01-0914:111 reply There is some EUPL software available here: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/
By sam_lowry_ 2026-01-0914:342 reply Where exactly? I really see nothing that qualifies as open source there. Just text.
By joostdecock 2026-01-0915:21 There's also this GitLab instance: https://code.europa.eu/
By bathtub365 2026-01-0915:01 Here is the actual catalogue https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/eu-oss-catalogue
By troyvit 2026-01-0916:29 Just to second what you are saying, over 2025 we saw some cases where small open source projects that underpin massive infrastructure are struggling for funding, and they don't even need that much! To me this is a place where the EU can spend a few dollars and have a massive influence on the sustainability and direction of open source projects.
By pphysch 2026-01-0916:48 European software industry is so interesting because my impression is that the (Western) OSS sector is largely supported by talented European developers. Just a vibe from interacting with hundreds of successful OSS projects.
Europe clearly has endemic talent, and I'm not even sure it's a funding problem rather than an organizational/leadership one. They could throw money at developers who already have decent if humble QoL, or they could bring them together to build large systems that can compete with American big tech.
By kubb 2026-01-0911:09 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.
By lifetimerubyist 2026-01-0913:51 Very few people truely understand the concept of Liberty.
By pabs3 2026-01-103:24 FSFE campaign for that: https://publiccode.eu/
> 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?
By integralid 2026-01-0911:201 reply >The spirit is good, but that software has cost good money to produce, and universities are dependent on external revenue
Obviously, but most of university research - at least in Europe - is funded by public money. The idea is that research funded by public money should be public by default, unless there's a reason to do otherwise.
>Also, should e.g. an American company have access to software produced by an Italian university?
Yes, of course.
Yet it's not American "public" money that funded it.
And it's good to realize what 'public' means in this case: paid for by the general public. What companies produce is also (often) paid for by them, only not via taxes but through purchases, subscriptions, etc. Why should the software produced by companies be exempt?
By CrimsonRain 2026-01-0914:581 reply American public money funded most of the tech that the whole Europe is depending on and extracting trillions of dollars value. Your American using Italian uni stuff is nonsense.
So the argument is basically: because taxes, and only taxes, paid for something somewhere, it should be free for everybody everywhere?
Ah wait, you're somebody else. Why the somewhat unhinged attack on Europe? Because Europe is getting US tech for free?
30 years ago, one of the things we were all naively hoping for was that a globally connected network would help to reduce the tribalism, obsolete these "American money" and "European bits" and "Chinese protocols" ideas and stop all the cross-border fighting over what's mine and what's yours. When a piece of software has contributors from 50 countries, how could it "belong" to one country? Obviously we are in an even worse spot, global cooperation wise, now than we were in the 90s.
By toomuchtodo 2026-01-0915:54 I've seen this work in certain situations, CERN and the LHC for example (I was on a data team for a detector). Everyone was driven by the science, where you came from didn't matter. With that said, and this part is going to be inflammatory potentially, people who are fear and tribal/in group driven are likely never going to be swayed (and building the mental model up via comments to properly contextualize this is beyond the scope of this thread). Tech doesn't fix people problems.
By tgv 2026-01-0916:21 It might have been a bit naive, and very much reliant on a more open, more liberal, and less neo-liberal, international order than we have right now. Greed and power are not (<-edit: I had skipped that bit) conducive to such ideals.
By toomuchtodo 2026-01-0915:42 Indeed, it appears they are upset that "the whole Europe is depending on and extracting trillions of dollars value" from American open source spend in some way.
> It's not unreasonable to charge for the things they produce.
When it is funded publicly it certainly is. A key feature of the university research system is that it is where people are supported without the expectation that their work is going to be commercially useful in any near-term time frame. If something is going to be commercially valuable then people should develop it in the private sphere. Nothing stopping them. In fact, that is basically what the US does and it has been wildly successful and relegated the EU to being a technical backwater trying to figure out how to get out from under the US's commercial dominance.
> Also, should e.g. an American company have access to software produced by an Italian university?
Yes. Knowledge is for everyone. Even the Americans. Trying to hold back the progress of the entire species because the US knows how to pump out software is a remarkably myopic strategy.
By tgv 2026-01-0916:15 > A key feature of the university research system is that it is where people are supported without the expectation that their work is going to be commercially useful in any near-term time frame
Idk where you got that idea from, but it's not an accurate picture since the mid 1980s. Yes, there is "fundamental" research, which is mostly a label for commercially not that interesting work (and cannot be expected to yield much open source anyway), but short-term project work and third-party funding are big. Also, much of the research is done with an eye towards profit, certainly in the medical and tech sector. And in the US, universities rely on a lot of private money.
> Knowledge
Knowledge isn't OSS. This (part of the) thread is specifically about (usable) software.
> the progress of the entire species
Them's big words.
By Tarq0n 2026-01-0914:11 That seems contradictory with the idea that software should be developed in the private sphere: closed source, proprietary APIs, patents and trade secrets are the antithesis of sharing knowledge.
By brodouevencode 2026-01-0916:271 reply The early mantras of OSS included "free as in speech" and "free as in beer".
By mghackerlady 2026-01-0917:51 Those were mantras of the Free Software movement. The open source movement (despite creating a lot of free software) was never about the moral stance of software freedom, but the practical benefits
By jokethrowaway 2026-01-0912:221 reply So, as open source developers building a public good, where is our share of EU taxes?
By hartator 2026-01-0912:31 Do you mean paying EU taxes for doing open-source? :)
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-0910:58 > 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.
By cindyllm 2026-01-0914:56 [dead]
The EU definitely has no concept of "love". It was founded to make trade easier. All the fuzz about humane values and morals has been tacked on more or less recently, to keep up the support for it from the population. It is the literal wolf in sheep's clothing.
It was founded to make world war 3 impossible /through/ trade. By intertwining the economies of countries that considered each other hereditary enemies (Erbfeinde in German), it sought to make war too costly to consider. Humanitarian values are a core part of what became the EU.
That's one of the reasons the EU has had so many political problems with Hungary and Poland in the last decade: their drift to authoritarian forms of government (including weakening the judiciary in Poland) didn't impact trade at all. Nonetheless, it went against the humanitarian values.
I'm no EU fanboy (there's plenty to criticize), but regarding chat control and surveillance, it's important to see from which part of the EU institutions the push comes: the council. The council consists of the governments of the member states. It's not the big bad EU trying to force surveillance on the innocent countries; it's the governments trying to push domestically unpopular surveillance through the EU. The directly elected EU parliament has so far always prevented this push.
By lynx97 2026-01-0921:05 Given the current geopolitics, it doesn't look like the EU was very effective in eliminating the possibility of WWIII...
Yet because of it's existence, thousands of people have been able to love beyond their countries borders.
By lynx97 2026-01-0920:52 Wait, requiring a passport to cross a border did prevent people from forming relationships? I really don't follow. It is not like we were prisoners in our home countries before the EU was invented. And "love" has always been a huge driver of immigration, way before the EU. I even know people who sold marriage so that the buyer could immigrate. So why exactly was the EU a driver for international love?
By waldarbeiter 2026-01-0912:082 reply What does "wolf in sheep's clothing" mean for you, concretely, outside of metaphors?
By lynx97 2026-01-0920:56 Well, the EU is pretty firmly in conservative hands. Ask a random EU citizen if they know that EPP is secretly leading the EU since its conception? They will likely not realize, because they fall for the piece&love propaganda. Just look at what VDL has done since she overtook the lead? Know where she comes from? Used to be defense minister in germany. Was called "Flintenuschi" back then. And now, magically, we are supposed to invest a shitload of money into military. Thats what I call a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Chat control and the never-ending drive to police our private communications.
By Y-bar 2026-01-0912:41 What exactly makes you assume that the persons arguing for open source here are not the same people who has helped us defeat earlier attempts to make chat control happen?
By yohannparis 2026-01-0913:11 The US was founded to not pay taxes... Come on, you know well that most things evolve and grow.
By jamesblonde 2026-01-0913:49 Subsidiarity has been a key building block of the EU and has failed the EU for unexpected reasons. Subsidiarity was pursued for accountability and to make the EU less centralized - decisions should be made at the lowest, most local level possible, with central authorities only stepping in when a task cannot be effectively handled locally. However, it means that here in Sweden govt bodies are all individually moving to Azure, because each one makes that local decision in their best interest. The same thing has happened all over the EU - and very few govt bodies would ever take the risk of investing in using EU cloud or data platforms. We need public procurement to help kickstart life into the Eurostack.
By rambambram 2026-01-0911:242 reply The EU has Schleswig-Holstein (a German state) as an example; office software and email replaced by open source alternatives. Look overthere, I would say. But overthere is a politician who actually understands what he is talking about.
I don't feel the need to provide governments/politicians with open source software who think like this: "open source – which is a public good to be freely used".
Start understanding how this works, because your American and Chinese counterparts do a better job at this.
By the way, don't come lazily asking for input. Go out proactively and find the answers yourself.
By NoboruWataya 2026-01-0913:342 reply > By the way, don't come lazily asking for input. Go out proactively and find the answers yourself.
The EU very regularly asks for input on new policy initiatives, it's one of the better aspects of the legislative/policy-making process. They are asking citizens' opinions on a policy that will potentially affect them, if you tell them to f off and do it themselves then don't be surprised when you hate the policy that comes out of it.
By rambambram 2026-01-0915:46 I don't tell them to F off, I give them my citizen opinion on HN. I expect their policy to be in their best interest, and I stopped hating on that a long time ago.
By rdm_blackhole 2026-01-0913:552 reply > The EU very regularly asks for input on new policy initiatives, it's one of the better aspects of the legislative/policy-making process.
And then it basically ignores all the input and moves forward with policies like chat control that are widely unpopular anyway. So much for consulting the people and asking for feedback.
By 1dontnkow_ 2026-01-1020:05 Yes but we gotta understand that sometimes some things the citizens suggest end up on the law. So we should just continuously fight to keep that happening.
Additionally, the EU and its administration, is a big group of people. There are probably different people or teams pushing for this idea, which all in all, is a very good one, maybe even fellow (ex) open source contributors, and the ChatControl thing, surely comes from other groups with entirely different interests.
By user2722 2026-01-0914:08 Yes. Probably someone in power is getting kickbacks to ignore the public and specialists. Once that hurdle is settled, whatever the way it happens, saner people can re-use previous requests for opinion to guide them on better paths.
Waste some - but not too much - of your energy poking our EU orgs to the right way.
They also have a major german city (Munich) who moved to Open Source, gave up and moved back. The SH project is rather new.
By kaveh_h 2026-01-0914:35 A long time ago Amazon tried to acquire a good online business diapers.com and initially the owners refused. Amazon proceded to get investors or lenders to funds 200 million dollars to undercut sales of diapers.com. Fast forward they were close to bankruptcy and owners were forced to sell it off for a bargain to Amazon. Since then the price of diapers have risen to be very profitable.
The point being that any businesses that sell proprietary software will do the same to kill competition, but in the long run they will end up costing more.
The real issue is government spending is that procurement is very broken even if you would opt for buying support for open source Software. This is not a problem China nor North Korea have due to how corporations have no easy way to influence politics in those Authoritarian countries.
