The European Commission has launched a fresh consultation into open source, setting out its ambitions for Europe's developer communities to go beyond propping up US tech giants' platforms.

In a "Call for Evidence" published this week, Brussels says the EU's reliance on non-European technology suppliers (read: US tech giants) has become a strategic liability, limiting choice, weakening competitiveness, and creating supply chain risks across everything from cloud services to critical infrastructure. The consultation, which will run from January 6 to February 3, is an early move toward a formal strategy on "European Open Digital Ecosystems," which would treat open source as core infrastructure rather than a nice-to-have.

According to the Commission, dependence on foreign vendors makes it harder for Europe to control its digital stack, potentially opening the door to security and resilience issues in sensitive sectors. Open source offers a way out of that bind by underpinning "a diverse portfolio of high-quality and secure digital solutions" that can act as viable alternatives to proprietary platforms, the EC said.

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[–] 46 points 10 months ago

This is absolutely massive for the FOSS community. A sovereign nation has resources that dwarf anything that the FOSS community has ever had access to.

Now, they just need to repeal the anti-circumvention laws. That'll cut the US tech sector deeply by allowing us to use the products that we pay for in the ways that we want.

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  • [–] 40 points 10 months ago

    So the EC joins the usa boycot. Finally some good eu news. 'Bout time i might add.

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  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)

    "Brussels spouts plan open..."

    One day the headline will match my reading fails

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  • [–] 35 points 10 months ago

    Thank fucking God that they're finally waking up. This is long overdue.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago

    look at the success Steam has made prying power away from Microsoft by investing into Linux.

    Freedom is right there, just invest in it and we all benefit.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago

    This should have been done 20 years ago, but better late than never.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    This is tinkering around the edges. Just fine Twitter millions a day for child sexual imagery. End of story. What are they fucking about for? Seriously, why the delay?

    Millions. Millions a day. That will get their attention. Lord knows the actual law hasn't.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago

    That sounds more like tinkering around the edges to me. Whipping companies like Twitter into behaving, while it absolutely needs to happen, won't fundamentally change anything about the dependency of Europe to those companies and the pressure the US can exert through that dependency.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    And in 10 years they'll agree to a small website that suggests that maybe Europe might want to open a place to store source code that's European hosted... In another five years.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    You are not wrong. Methinks a lot of Europe's lack of digital infrastructure is related to the mountains of red tape every person and company in the EU has to face. It's really discouraging.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    The reason for a lack of development is basically entirely economics. expensive to make, and difficult to make money on since the established players can already operate for cheap and even economically bully new players

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    Feel like they have been talking about this forever, maybe Trump will finally be the push they need.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    They need to stick the landing. America will threaten and bully. I've also heard some are afraid of the cost and complexity of doing something like this. Hopefully they do realize the necessity of it and stay the course despite all of that.

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  • Man, this is a must! EU media/entertainment is just too dominated by The USA products!

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Didn’t they switch to Microsoft recently?

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  • 7 comments in c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk view that post
    [–] 20 points 10 months ago

    By the Commission's own reckoning, somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of modern software relies on open source components, which means it already props up the digital economy whether anyone likes it or not. Brussels' gripe is that Europe does much of the building, while the commercial and strategic value too often ends up in the hands of big tech companies based elsewhere.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Pretty easy, give existing developers and entrepreneous of OS's, hardware and SOME platforms, communication platforms, etc. Fonding enough to speed up the process. (companies like Jolla/SailfishOS, Tuxedo, etc.) We need to say "Fuck the competitive clause!" and focus on EU manufacturing moving forward. Wake up to the real world, instead of all the regulations nonsens.

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  • Regulations & competition is always needed!

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  • [+] 0 points 10 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    Please, as a person with since birth-lifelong Challenges in both long & short term memories & language processing & used to be a degreed in SLD & many certifications of ESE from the supposed best education school, in Fl., public school HS ESE educator, PLEASE find a less offensive, because negative of the people challenged, word for people with learning challenges, like high performing I/things that are not thought-out right! While things I never wanted to do & never experienced something like “an new startup to start making communication or social media platforms”, so just taking your’s (& any other Internet people) word for this.,
    “communication or social media platforms” Are no where near regulated enough,
    &
    Regulations could be abused by Capitalist, as you give an possible example,
    That all sounds like it makes sense to me, but that is it, SOUNDS LIKE.

    With that being said, regulations to control greed of people, however it comes out as, I will defend to the end!

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I AM not saying regulations shouldn't be a thing. I AM saying the once that costs insain amounts of money for startups to be able to create what they are passionate about is wrong! They should motivate people to become entreprenours, not scare Them away by penalizing them before they've even started..

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  • I also just want to make sure that state these EXTREMELY important points about startups-inventing something new into the markets are so economically out of reach-
    1st. That is what regulations are supposed to work against
    &
    2nd. The economics conditions that the people trying to do startups-inventing something new into the markets ALSO make it too costly to achieve. Capitalism is all about The Rich-Super Rich Economic Classes/Owners given the unneeded for them as much as possible exclusivity to them economics ability to do startups-inventing something new into the markets. This is one of the reasons I hate the Capitalist & lamestream TV show ‘Shark Tank’!

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