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> it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a softwar

by palata 10mo ago

> it needs its own healthy and competitive software industry Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a software industry. It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive, and whenever the EU tries to apply antitrust laws, they get bullied by the US. > It does not matter if the e-ID or payments app is running on an open source mobile OS, but it should be possible to run it on a non-US one. I don't think they are talking about creating a mobile OS? But I do think that e-ID and similar government apps should be open source, so that people can trust them. > Open source may be one of the options, but it is not the right model for all types of software. Agreed, it does not necessarily have to be open source. But my opinion is that if the taxpayer's money is used to pay for software, then that software should be open source.

consp 10mo ago
> Agreed, it does not necessarily have to be open source. Or create an open source reference implementation and leave the final solution to the market. Everyone can use the reference implementation but if you think you can do better use your own. This includes a government doing it themselves either based on the reference implementation or not.
cryptica 10mo ago
> Agreed, it does not necessarily have to be open source. But my opinion is that if the taxpayer's money is used to pay for software, then that software should be open source. Yes. The government has more than enough leverage to demand this. Skill was never the problem. The problem is bureaucracy; too many regulations and massive hidden corruption. The problem with the regulations is that they were designed with the explicit intent to stifle competition. "Nobody got fired for choosing IBM" - This fact is pure corruption. I remember, when I was at university, one of the courses I took had a project management component and we did an assessment researching failed software projects and it turns out that there were a huge number of failed projects running in the hundreds of millions and even billions (and that was a lot of money at the time); always the same companies kept coming up. IMO, this is fraud, of a criminal nature. People should go to jail.
- palata 10mo ago
  > The problem is bureaucracy; too many regulations and massive hidden corruption I keep hearing the "too many regulations" argument, and I totally disagree. Too few regulations (or rather no enforcement of them) resulted in the TooBigTech monopolies we have today. Of course, they got so successful because of the lack of regulations, but now it's simply impossible to compete with them. Removing regulations (assuming that there are regulations that impact them today, which I doubt) would help them, not the competition. And we have precedents: * Whenever the EU tries to do some antitrust, it impacts TooBigTech (which is almost exclusively US), and as a result the US bullies the EU to stop it. If regulations were weakening the EU, why would the US government fight them? * Let's continue with the US as the example of fewer bureaucracy in this case (the complaint is that the EU cannot compete with the US because of the EU's bureaucracy): look at examples where a non-US company takes over a market (or threatens to take it over). Huawei smartphones (not the infrastructure like antennas, this is different), TikTok, DJI. What do US companies do to win against them? They lobby like crazy to add regulations that will stop the competition. The US hasn't managed to compete with TikTok: they made it illegal instead. When Huawei was becoming very big in smartphones in the US, they got banned. The US hasn't managed to compete with DJI, and the biggest US drone companies are spending a ton of resources trying to get DJI banned. DJI is so superior that even banning them is tricky: it has to be done slowly because banning them right away would disrupt entire industries for lack of viable alternatives. That's how far US drones are from DJI drones. "Too many regulations" is wrong. The successful players get protection from their government (be it the US or China), and it's high time the EU protected its own players, too. With regulations, just like the US and China does (when they don't abuse their dominant position to bully the EU).
  - labcomputer 10mo ago
    That seems like a lot of words to basically just admit that Europe’s regulations are anti-competitive. I especially enjoyed reading the logical fallacy of drone companies that are so small/non-existent that DJI cannot be banned quickly, but those same companies mysteriously have enough money to bribe politicians for a ban (and the much bigger DJI can’t outbid them). Also: You wrote in a previous comment that nobody can compete with Apple due to lack of antitrust regulation: > > Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? > The same thing that stops anyone from starting a new Google or Microsoft or Apple in the US, probably. But now you are saying that Huawei was about to unseat them and therefore needed to be banned. So… which is it?
carlosjobim 10mo ago
What is a European made operating system I can purchase for my computer?
- fsflover 10mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46552049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46552049
  - carlosjobim 10mo ago
    Do they have any paid consumer offerings, with consumer support?
    - fsflover 10mo ago
      I assume if you come with money, everything is possible. Also, you don't have to get support from the same company: There is no artificial monopoly in FLOSS unlike with proprietary software.
      - carlosjobim 10mo ago
        I could purchase the fully fledged OS X operating system as a consumer for $20, and get customer support for it. Now the OS is free with customer support. > There is no artificial monopoly in FLOSS I don't care about that as a consumer. I want software / a computer which works and easy customer support if I need it. People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know. Because FLOSS developers hate consumers and worship corporate enterprises.
        fsflover 10mo ago
        > I don't care about that as a consumer. Until this happens: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075. Or, worse, this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 or this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556. Megacorps don't care about your requests for support. > People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know https://www.debian.org/consultants/ https://www.debian.org/consultants/ https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/hardware/certified-hardware/certified-hardware.html https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/hardware/certified-h... and much more. Have you tried using search?
u8080 10mo ago
Idk, europeans saying thing like "It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive" implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist.
- palata 10mo ago
  > europeans saying thing like Where did I say I was European? > implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist Anti-competitive behaviours from TooBigTech are well documented, and they are regularly fined for that. I'm sure it happens from EU companies, but it has less impact given that the software industry is almost entirely dominated by US companies. Now I can't remember the last time the EU threatened the US to prevent them from regulating EU companies? Also are you aware that pretty much all governments in the EU rely on the US monopolies? I wouldn't call that "extremely protectionnist". As compared to e.g. the US banning Huawei or TikTok or DJI.
  - u8080 10mo ago
    I mean, EU has some de-facto BigTech giants like SAP which are on same anti-competitive side. It just happened that US was quicker and more successful in various areas including software. EU tactics on protectionism is creating legislative framework to apply tariffs to competing imports(i.e. import taxes and quotas(TARIC, etc), ecology-related fees, subsidies for local industries, restricting imports of goods for private citizens by postal limits and others)
    - palata 10mo ago
      I am not sure what you are trying to say. My whole point is that regulations are required for a sane market. The fact that the US wins because they don't play by the same rules does not mean that it is fair. And the fact that the US bans Chinese tech when they do to the US what the US does to the rest of the world shows that the US doesn't find it fair either. It's just easier to accept an unfair situation when we benefit from it.
- 10mo ago
rdm_blackhole 10mo ago
> Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a software industry. It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive, and whenever the EU tries to apply antitrust laws, they get bullied by the US. Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? Concretely no. What's stopping this is that most governments in Europe are taxing companies to death to fund social services that end up in deficit anyway. It's getting tiring of hearing of the big bad Microsoft that stops poor Europe from competing properly. The EU tech salaries are ridiculously low and the tax burden is unreasonably high. Add on top of that an aversion to risk from the banks and VC funds in Europe and this is what you get.
- palata 10mo ago
  > Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? The same thing that stops anyone from starting a new Google or Microsoft or Apple in the US, probably. And that's apparently not regulations. > It's getting tiring of hearing of the big bad Microsoft that stops poor Europe from competing properly. Who says that? I don't. What I say is that the big bad monopolies stop others from competing properly. But the big bad monopolies being US companies, they are protected by the US government who doesn't really care about having US competition in the US, but cares about domining over the rest of the world. > The EU tech salaries are ridiculously low and the tax burden is unreasonably high. Add on top of that an aversion to risk from the banks and VC funds in Europe and this is what you get. Again, a handful of companies completely dominate the software industry in the US, too. Is that because of ridiculously low salaries and unreasonably high tax burden in the US? I don't get the reasoning.
  - CrimsonRain 10mo ago
    Blah blah. That's why almost all the tech companies in EU that (start to) get big, shifts to US. eu has a shit software industry and it has only itself to blame for the insane amount of bureaucracy, cutthroat taxes, labor laws that promote stagnation, and the culture of extreme risk aversion. It is a good place to live until the borrowed time elapses.

by palata 10mo ago

consp 10mo ago

> Agreed, it does not necessarily have to be open source. Or create an open source reference implementation and leave the final solution to the market. Everyone can use the reference implementation but if you think you can do better use your own. This includes a government doing it themselves either based on the reference implementation or not.

cryptica 10mo ago

> Agreed, it does not necessarily have to be open source. But my opinion is that if the taxpayer's money is used to pay for software, then that software should be open source. Yes. The government has more than enough leverage to demand this. Skill was never the problem. The problem is bureaucracy; too many regulations and massive hidden corruption. The problem with the regulations is that they were designed with the explicit intent to stifle competition. "Nobody got fired for choosing IBM" - This fact is pure corruption. I remember, when I was at university, one of the courses I took had a project management component and we did an assessment researching failed software projects and it turns out that there were a huge number of failed projects running in the hundreds of millions and even billions (and that was a lot of money at the time); always the same companies kept coming up. IMO, this is fraud, of a criminal nature. People should go to jail.

palata 10mo ago
> The problem is bureaucracy; too many regulations and massive hidden corruption I keep hearing the "too many regulations" argument, and I totally disagree. Too few regulations (or rather no enforcement of them) resulted in the TooBigTech monopolies we have today. Of course, they got so successful because of the lack of regulations, but now it's simply impossible to compete with them. Removing regulations (assuming that there are regulations that impact them today, which I doubt) would help them, not the competition. And we have precedents: * Whenever the EU tries to do some antitrust, it impacts TooBigTech (which is almost exclusively US), and as a result the US bullies the EU to stop it. If regulations were weakening the EU, why would the US government fight them? * Let's continue with the US as the example of fewer bureaucracy in this case (the complaint is that the EU cannot compete with the US because of the EU's bureaucracy): look at examples where a non-US company takes over a market (or threatens to take it over). Huawei smartphones (not the infrastructure like antennas, this is different), TikTok, DJI. What do US companies do to win against them? They lobby like crazy to add regulations that will stop the competition. The US hasn't managed to compete with TikTok: they made it illegal instead. When Huawei was becoming very big in smartphones in the US, they got banned. The US hasn't managed to compete with DJI, and the biggest US drone companies are spending a ton of resources trying to get DJI banned. DJI is so superior that even banning them is tricky: it has to be done slowly because banning them right away would disrupt entire industries for lack of viable alternatives. That's how far US drones are from DJI drones. "Too many regulations" is wrong. The successful players get protection from their government (be it the US or China), and it's high time the EU protected its own players, too. With regulations, just like the US and China does (when they don't abuse their dominant position to bully the EU).
- labcomputer 10mo ago
  That seems like a lot of words to basically just admit that Europe’s regulations are anti-competitive. I especially enjoyed reading the logical fallacy of drone companies that are so small/non-existent that DJI cannot be banned quickly, but those same companies mysteriously have enough money to bribe politicians for a ban (and the much bigger DJI can’t outbid them). Also: You wrote in a previous comment that nobody can compete with Apple due to lack of antitrust regulation: > > Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? > The same thing that stops anyone from starting a new Google or Microsoft or Apple in the US, probably. But now you are saying that Huawei was about to unseat them and therefore needed to be banned. So… which is it?

carlosjobim 10mo ago

What is a European made operating system I can purchase for my computer?

fsflover 10mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46552049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46552049
- carlosjobim 10mo ago
  Do they have any paid consumer offerings, with consumer support?
  - fsflover 10mo ago
    I assume if you come with money, everything is possible. Also, you don't have to get support from the same company: There is no artificial monopoly in FLOSS unlike with proprietary software.
    - carlosjobim 10mo ago
      I could purchase the fully fledged OS X operating system as a consumer for $20, and get customer support for it. Now the OS is free with customer support. > There is no artificial monopoly in FLOSS I don't care about that as a consumer. I want software / a computer which works and easy customer support if I need it. People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know. Because FLOSS developers hate consumers and worship corporate enterprises.
      - fsflover 10mo ago
        > I don't care about that as a consumer. Until this happens: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075. Or, worse, this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 or this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556. Megacorps don't care about your requests for support. > People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know https://www.debian.org/consultants/ https://www.debian.org/consultants/ https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/hardware/certified-hardware/certified-hardware.html https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/hardware/certified-h... and much more. Have you tried using search?

u8080 10mo ago

Idk, europeans saying thing like "It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive" implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist.

palata 10mo ago
> europeans saying thing like Where did I say I was European? > implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist Anti-competitive behaviours from TooBigTech are well documented, and they are regularly fined for that. I'm sure it happens from EU companies, but it has less impact given that the software industry is almost entirely dominated by US companies. Now I can't remember the last time the EU threatened the US to prevent them from regulating EU companies? Also are you aware that pretty much all governments in the EU rely on the US monopolies? I wouldn't call that "extremely protectionnist". As compared to e.g. the US banning Huawei or TikTok or DJI.
- u8080 10mo ago
  I mean, EU has some de-facto BigTech giants like SAP which are on same anti-competitive side. It just happened that US was quicker and more successful in various areas including software. EU tactics on protectionism is creating legislative framework to apply tariffs to competing imports(i.e. import taxes and quotas(TARIC, etc), ecology-related fees, subsidies for local industries, restricting imports of goods for private citizens by postal limits and others)
  - palata 10mo ago
    I am not sure what you are trying to say. My whole point is that regulations are required for a sane market. The fact that the US wins because they don't play by the same rules does not mean that it is fair. And the fact that the US bans Chinese tech when they do to the US what the US does to the rest of the world shows that the US doesn't find it fair either. It's just easier to accept an unfair situation when we benefit from it.
10mo ago

rdm_blackhole 10mo ago

> Because it struggles to compete with the US monopolies doesn't mean that it doesn't have a software industry. It's hard to compete with TooBigTech when they are being anti-competitive, and whenever the EU tries to apply antitrust laws, they get bullied by the US. Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? Concretely no. What's stopping this is that most governments in Europe are taxing companies to death to fund social services that end up in deficit anyway. It's getting tiring of hearing of the big bad Microsoft that stops poor Europe from competing properly. The EU tech salaries are ridiculously low and the tax burden is unreasonably high. Add on top of that an aversion to risk from the banks and VC funds in Europe and this is what you get.

palata 10mo ago
> Is there anything that stops today anyone from starting a new Google or a new Microsoft or a new Apple in Europe? The same thing that stops anyone from starting a new Google or Microsoft or Apple in the US, probably. And that's apparently not regulations. > It's getting tiring of hearing of the big bad Microsoft that stops poor Europe from competing properly. Who says that? I don't. What I say is that the big bad monopolies stop others from competing properly. But the big bad monopolies being US companies, they are protected by the US government who doesn't really care about having US competition in the US, but cares about domining over the rest of the world. > The EU tech salaries are ridiculously low and the tax burden is unreasonably high. Add on top of that an aversion to risk from the banks and VC funds in Europe and this is what you get. Again, a handful of companies completely dominate the software industry in the US, too. Is that because of ridiculously low salaries and unreasonably high tax burden in the US? I don't get the reasoning.
- CrimsonRain 10mo ago
  Blah blah. That's why almost all the tech companies in EU that (start to) get big, shifts to US. eu has a shit software industry and it has only itself to blame for the insane amount of bureaucracy, cutthroat taxes, labor laws that promote stagnation, and the culture of extreme risk aversion. It is a good place to live until the borrowed time elapses.