[HN Gopher] France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsof...
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France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Author : bwb
Score : 423 points
Date : 2026-01-26 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| jleyank wrote:
| And they can strike back at corporate America by licensing the
| stuff under gnu licenses. Software that's reasonably small,
| reasonably effective and portable. What a concept. If only the EU
| or UK had 5-10 hackers...
| trelane wrote:
| Even something already available off the shelf!
|
| https://www.fsf.org/blogs/membership/jitsi-meet-an-often-ove...
| Neil44 wrote:
| One of my networking groups uses Jitsi. It's fine.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It's pretty awful to setup compared to the Livekit-based
| solution.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Visio is more than just the software, it's a French run tool
| where the entire stack is provided at an
| enterprise/governmental level with various guarentees about
| availability, confidentiality etc.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| De Gaulle strikes back)
| caboteria wrote:
| It's difficult to take an announcement like this seriously when
| it's posted on Twitter.
| iso1631 wrote:
| This is just some account from a tech journalist
|
| This is the press release:
|
| https://presse.economie.gouv.fr/souverainete-numerique-letat...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766004
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| For a fraction of what these products cost France could fund open
| source alternatives.
|
| Edit: I'm not saying they don't.
| 0xADD1E wrote:
| You mean something like LiveKit, with a basic implementation of
| user management etc such as
| https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet ?
| _ache_ wrote:
| They do. << we are committed to contributing back to the
| LiveKit community whenever feasible >>.
| saubeidl wrote:
| The tool they're building _is_ open source:
| https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet
| RankingMember wrote:
| translation (and without twitter): https://www-numerama-
| com.translate.goog/cyberguerre/2167301-...
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| We need more like this. Europe is totally dependent on US
| companies for cloud computing.
| rconti wrote:
| As a dual US/EU national who would love to move to Europe, I,
| for one, welcome the increase in tech demand on that side of
| the pond.
| eb0la wrote:
| Until now nobody thought it was a problem. At least not a big
| one. The EU made some moves to define a "cloud computing"
| platform for Europe, and very little people paid attention
| because business-wise it was very difficult to compete with US
| corporations that have vast amounts of money in cash and find
| easy to get funding.
|
| But now there are some (small) alternatives.
|
| LIDL has its own cloud for retail.
|
| And I believe T-Systems sells some cloud computing for
| goverments based on OpenStack...
|
| Small steps, but steps.
| nunez wrote:
| I don't think a cloud provider that is _just_ a cloud provider
| exists. All of the cloud providers I can think of (AWS, GCP,
| Azure, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Baidu, etc) are subsidiaries of
| larger corporations whose profit centers are elsewhere.
|
| The capital requirements needed to spin up a public cloud and
| the services that come with that are absolutely massive. It
| makes me think that cloud computing, despite the gigantic
| profits it brings in, is not sustainable on its own.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I wonder if the EU will begin trying to recruit American software
| engineers. I'd love to move to France.
| captain_coffee wrote:
| I doubt Americans will even pick up the phone or respond to
| LinkedIn messages / emails when they will se the budgets for
| the software Engineering roles in the EU.
|
| I am saying that as an European, just to be clear.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Not everyone is optimizing for total comp. Some are
| optimizing for better lives. It's not a wild concept
| considering how many people get pulled into startups, 90% of
| which fail, under the guide of "mission" and lower market
| comp. Do you pick a mostly assured better quality of life? Or
| an equity payout lottery ticket/fairy tale? Certainly, there
| is a minority of folks making wild comp at FAANG, but that is
| a privileged minority of total tech and IT workers.
| baal80spam wrote:
| > Some are optimizing for better lives
|
| Of course. I just hope these people know that for example
| healthcare in Europe is by no means free.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| My health insurance for a family of four in Spain is
| $2k/year. In the US, it was exceeding $25k/year with
| premiums, copays, deductibles, etc. While not free, it is
| accessible.
|
| There was a time in my life we had to decide in the
| middle of the night if we could afford to take one of our
| children to the ER in the US when they were a newborn. I
| will never have that feeling in Europe, and that is
| priceless. Tax me more, I will happily contribute to a
| functioning governance system. I like taxes, with them I
| contribute to civilization. As an American, I am all in
| on Europe. It's not perfect, but the bar is in hell.
|
| _We Asked 300 People About Health Care Costs. The
| Numbers Are Shocking._ -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/opinion/health-
| insurance-... | https://archive.today/MnYz9 - January
| 22nd, 2026
| znkynz wrote:
| That article is just mindblowing. My countries Health
| Service is far from perfect, but that is insanity.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This is a component of what those who can qualify for
| some sort of visa are fleeing. The economics are
| undeniable.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean the issue here is your arguing on hackernews. The
| vast majority of people on this site in the USA just
| don't have these issues. Health care is taken care by the
| employeer and they are paid more.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's not free, but it's much cheaper. (And yes, that
| includes taxation.)
|
| https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/health-
| spending.html
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_health_expen
| dit...
|
| As a bonus, all that spend doesn't make us better in
| outcomes.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low#life-
| expec...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I think you're not quite understanding just how bad EU pay
| is for software. Frankly with the $$ you basically always
| going to come out ahead with the more comp especially since
| USA software companies normally offer great healthcare and
| comparable vacation.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| With a baby on the way, I'd seriously consider it for their
| lifetime benefits. Where does one begin looking?
| jeppester wrote:
| I don't know about France, but here in Denmark you'd
| generally find tech jobs on LinkedIn.
|
| If you have a decent amount of experience I don't think
| you'd be looking for very long.
|
| But as stated by other commenters, the salaries and lower
| and the taxes higher.
|
| What you get back is great worker protection, child care,
| free education and generally a feeling of safety for
| yourself and family. We also have a democracy that offers
| more than two choices!
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I know several folks who've migrated from US -> EU tech roles
| in the last few years. Yes, you earn less and pay (somewhat)
| more taxes. But if you have a few kids the difference in cost
| of education pretty much wipes out the difference, and some
| folks really value the stress reduction of a robust social
| safety net (layoff protections, healthcare coverage while
| unemployed, etc)
| dlahoda wrote:
| Will not. You should love to move youself to pay 30% more taxes
| and work for 30% less salary (not sure what percentage to apply
| first).
| captain_coffee wrote:
| more like 50+ % less salary, just saying
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > pay 30% more taxes
|
| This is scaremongering - taxes are in no way 30% higher in
| EU.
|
| Someone pulling mid-6-figures in the Valley is already paying
| a ~35% effective tax rate (state + medicare + federal). That
| same person taking a low-6-figures job in Spain would pay
| ~40% effective tax rate - and Beckam's Law would likely cut
| that to 24% for the first 6 years in any case
| nehal3m wrote:
| Why wait? If you can get a work visa you might as well,
| independent of this push. English proficiency in France isn't
| amazing though (speaking as a Dutchman that visits France most
| summers), so learning French would be a big help.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Do you have a suggestion of where to begin looking? Doesn't
| have to be France either.
| nehal3m wrote:
| I'm not sure, it depends on what kind of work you're
| looking for. For the Netherlands, I'd start here.
|
| https://www.tech-careers.nl/job-seeker-visa-for-tech-
| roles-i...
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| They've been incentivizing it for years. Talent passport, EU
| Blue card and the Tech Visa. As I have heard they'll pay you to
| move there.
|
| Expect 50% salary and taxes that will make your eyes water.
| French bureaucracy is kafkaesque even in 2026.
|
| Other than that I agree I'd love to move there.
| eloisant wrote:
| Taxes are not really an issue because of the services you get
| out of it: free healthcare, free education for your kids,
| etc.
|
| But yes, salary before taxes is much lower than in the US. If
| your goal is to make as much money as possible, either stay
| in US or move to a different European country (Northern
| Europe or Switzerland).
| nxm wrote:
| As a software engineer in the US you're not really worrying
| about access to health care, and have access to public
| schools as well.
| belter wrote:
| "Health Insurance Is Now More Expensive Than the Mortgage
| for These Americans" -
| https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/aca-health-
| insurance-c...
| Insanity wrote:
| What if you get laid off?
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > As a software engineer in the US you're not really
| worrying about access to health care
|
| You're "not really worrying" ... whilst you are in a job.
|
| There fixed that for you.
|
| As I am sure you are acutely aware US is the home of lay-
| offs and is generally easy to fire people.
|
| If you loose your job in the US it becomes panic stations
| because you loose that precious employer-paid healthcare
| overnight.
|
| Meanwhile in Europe ? Take your time job hunting a new
| job, healthcare is still free.
| adev_ wrote:
| > Meanwhile in Europe ? Take your time job hunting a new
| job, healthcare is still free.
|
| Currently, healthcare coverage tend to be _better_ in
| several European countries when you are jobless...
| because the system try to compensate the fact you do not
| have income anymore.
|
| Don't get me wrong, their is many 'flaws' in several
| European healthcare systems and it is far from perfect.
| but it tends to be more "human" and less "for profit".
| iamEAP wrote:
| I left the US, not because I was worried about healthcare
| for myself or my family, but because of how I felt it
| reflected on me that I was fine choosing to stay and cash
| a large check every month while others around me had to
| worry about healthcare.
| znkynz wrote:
| What happens to your health insurance if you get too sick
| to work?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The bet is that you will earn enough prior to 50 or maybe
| even 40 so that you won't have to work, and then you can
| live off the investments and wherever you want.
|
| High risk, high reward and all that. Although, the
| previous 20 years of high compensation are obviously no
| indication of the next 20.
| toephu2 wrote:
| "free"... as in paid for with high taxes
| eb0la wrote:
| But in the other hand you don't have to worry about mass
| shootings. You can freely walk (mostly) wherever you want
| without risking your life (that is not normal in most of the
| world). And you're not going bankrupt because of a
| minor/medium medical condition.
|
| Europe is a _very_ different place.
|
| Not everything here is so bad.
| rapnie wrote:
| > They've been incentivizing it for years.
|
| There is also NGI Sargasso which had EU grants being awarded
| to collaborations between parties in the EU and the US,
| working on internet innovation projects. Looks like that
| funding program has closed. Not sure if these open calls were
| slashed by the Trump government.
|
| https://ngisargasso.eu/
| ivolimmen wrote:
| In the Netherlands we return 30% of your taxes in the first 10.
| So we welcome you as well. We may pay less compared to the USA
| but we have health care, better work life balance and we all
| talk English.
| captain_coffee wrote:
| the first 10 what? Years? It's actually not like that:
| https://www.government.nl/topics/income-
| tax/shortening-30-pe...
|
| From 1 January 2024, expats who meet the conditions receive
| the following tax benefits:
|
| - 30% tax free for the first 20 months;
|
| - 20% tax free for the next 20 months;
|
| - 10% tax free for the last 20 months.
|
| So that's a tapered reduction over the first 5 years and the
| amount of money that you gain after tax is between
| negligeable and insultingly small.
|
| Basically in its current form "The Dutch 30% ruling" is not
| really worth it, if you want to move to The Netherlands do it
| for other reasons, and the advertisment of this mechanism
| feels borderline disingenious in its current form.
| mk89 wrote:
| I think it was like that some years ago. Now, as you said,
| it's really useless. 20 months are just the time to find an
| apartment, furnish it and get used to the place.
|
| Afterwards you have to pay some of the highest taxes in the
| world....
| toephu2 wrote:
| Isn't the primary tongue of locals in the Netherlands Dutch?
| Yes you know English, but don't the locals speak Dutch or
| German to each other?
| ifwinterco wrote:
| Dutch people still speak Dutch to each other so if you were
| going to live there permanently and wanted to properly
| participate in society you would need to learn Dutch.
|
| However the average level of English ability in NL is
| extremely good, you won't meet many people who don't have
| really good English especially for younger generations.
| Definitely not the case in e.g. France or Italy
| kylecazar wrote:
| I don't see the dependency on these productivity and
| communication tools as that difficult of a problem to solve.
|
| They are going to have a much harder time weaning off American
| cloud infrastructure and on to something purely domestic.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They need to do both the hard things and the easy things, and
| do them in parallel.
|
| Which they are.
| causalscience wrote:
| Stop being reasonable!
| fcarraldo wrote:
| ScaleWay and OVH are already filling this gap.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Good luck with OVH. Most EU companies, including this one,
| offer subpar services compared to their American
| counterparts.
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| I agree with Scaleway (I would more compare it to Digital
| Ocean) but OVH is really good and comparable.
| antonkochubey wrote:
| DigitalOcean is fantastic in my experience, way better
| than The Big Three, especially Azure.
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| Yes I know! Scaleway is great as well. But I was
| referring to the product portfolio.
| markvdb wrote:
| My fingers always ache when I hear praise for the company
| that through its incompetence nearly lost me my company's
| domain name... twice. Shame on me for staying with them.
| gdilla wrote:
| sure, gotta start somewhere.
| sundache wrote:
| I use AWS and OVH at work and this has not my experience.
|
| AWS has more services, but a lot of those are of dubious
| quality. I'd love to never have to use redshift or EMR
| again for instance. OVH is more basic, but what it has
| tends to work at least.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > AWS has more services, but a lot of those are of
| dubious quality.
|
| Being cynical AWS has more services because many of those
| are deliberately siloed in order to create a separate
| billing item, i.e.:
|
| "You want to use AWS Foo ...great, welcome to AWS ! But
| unless you want to re-invent the wheel re-programming the
| standard workflow, you should really use AWS Bar and AWS
| Baz alongside it. Dontcha' like all the cute names we've
| given them ? Here are all the price sheets, don't forget
| to read the small print ... good luck figuring out how
| much it will cost you".
| Choco31415 wrote:
| I've used OVH for multiple projects and they've been
| wonderful to work with.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Even assuming this is true, EU cloud providers no longer
| have to compete with their American counterparts on an even
| footing thanks to the insanity coming out of the White
| House (and American society more generally). There's a very
| big push to get off of American providers, and many (though
| not all) customers are willing to make sacrifices to do so.
|
| If providers like OVH play their cards right, they can use
| this sudden influx of cash to both scale up, and improve
| their offerings. There's a lot of money on the table right
| now.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Most EU companies, including this one, offer subpar
| services compared to their American counterparts
|
| Not true.
|
| But you know what the best thing about the EU companies is
| ?
|
| Transparent pricing.
|
| _EU company_ : Yes, you really can accurately calculate to
| the nearest cent how much your compute instance will cost
| you and exactly what you are getting for that money. No
| surprises.
|
| _US company_ :Is that Compute Savings Plan, EC2 Savings
| Plan, On-Demand or Spot. What speed is my network _" up
| to"_ ? And then of course the big _" I DUNNO"_ in relation
| to _" how many IOPS am I going to be charged for EBS disk
| transfer ?"_
|
| _EU company_ : Of course we don't charge you for LIST etc.
| on S3. We only charge you for off-network GETs and the
| associated data transfer, on-network is free.
|
| _US company_ : What do you mean LIST etc. should be free ?
|
| You know what else I like about the EU companies ?
|
| At least two of them allow pay as you go from a reducing
| credit balance.
|
| Yes that's right US companies. It _IS_ possible to give
| your customers a way to 100% guarantee you will never have
| an _" oops I just spent a million dollars overnight"_
| moment.
| omnimus wrote:
| They are fine. Cloud is a commodity. Hetzner and Bunny are
| pretty great and i am sure there are many more.
|
| The problem is when US decides to ban sales of compute
| hardware to EU (like they do to China). Then it will be
| clear who's really in power.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Then it will be clear who's really in power.
|
| If China closed the door overnight to the US, it would
| also be clear who's really in power.
|
| The US simply does not have the capacity to replicate the
| manufacturing domestically.
|
| Even if it were possible, "100% Made in the US" would end
| up costing _at least_ 20-30% more.
|
| And the US does not have a plan B. Sure there _might_ be
| India .... one day....years away.
| omnimus wrote:
| Oh I agree. China is clearly outplaying everyone. But EU
| surely doesn't want to replace one leash (US tech stack)
| with different leash (Chinese tech stack).
|
| I keep wondering though. Is insane amount of compute
| really that crucial? Aren't most real computing needs
| served well with not so cutting edge tech? I am 5-10
| years behind on most of my machines. Servers we have at
| work are very modest (and outdated) yet the software
| these servers power are still valuable. Maybe EU could
| run on some domestic RISC-V cheapo chips.
| piva00 wrote:
| There'll be a vacuum filled by non-US brands, China is
| learning and given they'll push to be independent
| eventually they'll compete with AMD/Intel/Nvidia, Europe
| has ARM.
|
| The worst thing in the long-term for American hardware
| makers is for the US to block other countries to purchase
| from them and having that money invested in alternatives.
| fileeditview wrote:
| That could end in an ugly stalemate pretty fast,
| considering ASML is Dutch.
| 202508042147 wrote:
| Well, then the EU can also ban the sale of ASML machines
| to US and anyone dealing with the US. Let's hope we won't
| get to that.
| irusensei wrote:
| I think companies should just allocate raw computing and
| put agnostic stacks on top of it instead of using whatever
| shinny serverless G-Azurezon Serverless Function Lambda
| Cloud with NOTREDIS CACHE and LOCAL FLAVOR OF KUBERNETES
| plus the new OTEL-BUT-INVENTED-HERE monitoring solution.
| davedx wrote:
| CleverCloud, Hetzner
| bootsmann wrote:
| StackIT is the AWS competitor actually, OVH is not really
| laid out to be a hyperscaler.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Depends how hooked into the "cloud infrastructure" ecosystem
| they are. If it's a provider of vms which are easy to move from
| one provider to another that's one thing, if it's reliant on
| the latest cool aws thing that's another.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| Jitsi meet exists for long time and it works. What is needed is
| eu sovereign clouds
| kwanbix wrote:
| Hardware is the biggest problem: PCs (CPUs, RAMs, GPUs),
| Cellphones, routers, etc.
|
| Globalization appears to be self imploding by virtue of the
| current american president.
|
| Now everybody realises you can trust no one.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| we were over globalized. COVID showed us that when we couldnt
| even produce life saving medicines domestically. If the take
| away from world war 1 was too much nationalism, the take away
| from covid is, too much globalism.
|
| Resilient cultures are by definition market inefficient.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| What if there was a culture rooted in the ideology of an
| 'efficient market'?
|
| I assume, then, that culture would be doomed to fail.
| causalscience wrote:
| I like CryptPad.fr. End-to-end encrypted google docs.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Deleted tweet?
| _ache_ wrote:
| Can access X because it's X and locally blocked, "ironic" to use
| Twitter to post about sovereignty.
|
| It's ongoing for a will with La suite numerique
| (https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/).
|
| - Tchap is a message app for officials, - Visio, based on LiveKit
| - FranceTransfert, I don't know what is it. - Fichiers => Drive -
| Messagerie => Email - Docs => A better Google Docs - Grist =>
| Excel version of Google docs.
|
| It aimed at "public worker", people working for the government.
|
| Github: https://github.com/suitenumerique
| jasoncartwright wrote:
| Built using Django!
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Ironic to use Github to post about sovereignty )
| bananasandrice wrote:
| That was a lowry response.
| _ache_ wrote:
| I'm trying to not use it myself but yes, la suite numerique
| should get out of GitHub.
|
| They already did it for the Ministry of Education with [La
| Forge](https://docs.forge.apps.education.fr/). Used to be
| forgejo, now a GitLab instance.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| GitLab, a YC and by extension an American company )
|
| This can go as far as we want )
| jonathaneunice wrote:
| Switching to sovereignty-protecting, locally-hosted
| collaboration, compute, and storage is by no means impossible.
| FOSS advocates have been eagerly beating this drum and providing
| options for 25+ years.
|
| The missing ingredient has _always_ been the will to absorb the
| inevitable cost of change, and the friction of choosing something
| other than the standard, go-to, often at least apparently free
| (or at least bundled) tools.
|
| The current U.S. threats against NATO and allies creates a rift
| in the previously-accepted international order that may finally
| motivate material change. Often such change is chaotic and
| discontinuous--it feels well nigh impossible, right up to the
| moment it feels necessary and inevitable.
| nasretdinov wrote:
| My hope is that all this push towards tech independence (not just
| from EU) will make the most "basic" tools open-source and they
| wouldn't suck as much as they do now.
|
| What I mean by this is e.g. you can already use Linux on a
| desktop and it's generally okay (or even good sometimes), however
| things like LibreOffice are absolutely unusable in terms of
| performance, functionality and user friendliness compared to e.g.
| Keynote or even Pages on macOS.
|
| Multiple governments having to solve essentially the same issue
| on a global scale is a unique opportunity to save costs by
| working on open source together, and get funding and direction
| that's never been available to OSS before.
| mhitza wrote:
| It also doesn't feel like the mid 2000s anymore, where offline
| word/excel are essential for most day to day work.
|
| Most of the time I deal with csv downloads for data, or the
| shit PDFs that I can only fill in with the Adobe reader on
| windows. I can't recall the last time I fired up OnlyOffice
| (better MS garbage compatibility) for anything related to work.
|
| This doesn't mean that those tools are irrelevant, but
| significantly less needed, and less of a migration hurdle for
| many companies.
| leoedin wrote:
| Yeah, I've been able to use desktop Linux without many issues
| in a corporate environment. The main issue was the web
| version of office being incomplete. If corporate IT teams
| embraced it, I bet most companies could be free of Windows
| without too much issue.
|
| The bigger problem seems to be the cloud services - teams,
| OneDrive, sharepoint and all the account management stuff.
| jbombadil wrote:
| I hope so too, but don't believe that's the ultimate intent
| here.
|
| The problem is that the tech independence is being pushed by
| government who want more control - not less. (Not speaking
| specifically of France and this instance, but looking at the
| anti-encryption rules that the UK and Ireland are pushing)
|
| From that standpoint, I imagine the "solution" here won't be to
| push an open source alternative, but a closed one that they to
| control.
| nasretdinov wrote:
| I agree that it's not an intent. However hopefully it's going
| to be open-source, as is the case for most government work in
| the UK for example. One can dream I guess
| ergocoder wrote:
| As much as I cheer for OpenOffice, it sucks. And it has been
| decades now.
|
| I'm not even an advanced Word / Google Doc user.
|
| Are we gonna wait for 100 more years for it to be good?
| umanwizard wrote:
| OpenOffice? Do you mean LibreOffice?
|
| OpenOffice has been effectively dead for many years (though,
| maddeningly, Apache continues to publish it and squat the
| trademark); LibreOffice is the mainline where development
| continues.
| Insanity wrote:
| Word also kind of sucks. My biggest gripe is that it doesn't
| understand markdown input. And once you add tables to the
| word doc, it turns into even more of a mess to work with.
| ptx wrote:
| The latest version of OpenOffice (4.1.x) is over a decode
| old, aside from security releases with "bug fixes and little
| enhancements", so it's not surprising that it hasn't improved
| in the last decade.
|
| LibreOffice is the actively developed fork.
|
| There's a nice diagram on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/OpenOffice.org#Forks_and_deriv...
| xutopia wrote:
| Don't believe this has anything other than to do with the USA's
| recent attacks on NATO countries.
| me551ah wrote:
| Replicating features from existing software has become extremely
| easy due to AI. I won't be surprised if open source is able to
| easily catch up with the bigger products.
| this_user wrote:
| Replicating the software is easy, running the services at AWS-
| scale is hard.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Would you need to though?
|
| If an organisation ran it's own instance, it would only need
| to scale for that organisation ( including any external
| attends over a bridge ).
|
| That does of course assume companies have the
| expertise/appetite to run things themselves.
| concinds wrote:
| Not so much "aiming" as doing it. The alternative already exists,
| is open-source, and used by 40,000 government users. By 2027 all
| government agencies will use it exclusively.
| duxup wrote:
| What is that option?
| cocoflunchy wrote:
| Visio from https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/
| bsimpson wrote:
| It's funny that it's such a blatant knock-off of Google
| Workspace - the repos even have the same names:
|
| https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet
|
| I wonder if the emoji will grow into its own set:
|
| https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet/blob/main/src/fronte
| n...
| omnimus wrote:
| It doesn't matter. Office suites are a commodity. Google
| suite is knockoff of MS Office at certain point in time.
| That's just the nature of digital - information want's to
| be free.
| duxup wrote:
| I feel like we would see a lot more movement if we've
| reached the commodity point...
| omnimus wrote:
| It's network effects / lock-in. There is a reason why
| people still use Microsoft Office and that is that
| surprising amount of industries have everything build
| around it. In my country anything law related is
| submitted in Microsoft Word. Academic texts? Microsoft
| Word. Communication with government? Microsoft Word.
|
| The reason why Google Docs somewhat managed to break this
| was 1. free, 2. multiplayer/easy to share.
|
| One law about requiring the state documents to be
| submitted in open formats, editable in libre software...
| and the lock instantly breaks.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > blatant knock-off of Google Workspace - the repos even
| have the same names
|
| That's exactly what we need though, so I see that as a
| plus.
| mcoliver wrote:
| Visio with live kit (part of lasuite) or opendesk with jitsi
| would be my guess.
|
| https://livekit.io/ https://www.clever.cloud/product/visio/
| https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/
|
| https://jitsi.org/ https://www.opendesk.eu/en
|
| As an aside I am surprised it has taken this long but seems
| inevitable now given the last 18 months.
| omnimus wrote:
| My bet would be that "the standard" will be Heinlein Groups
| (company behind mailbox.org) OpenTalk (already better than
| Jitsy) and now they are doing OpenCloud as scaleable
| NextCloud alternative. The company behind the projects
| needs it for their own usecases, has stable business and
| they have decades of experience.
| gizajob wrote:
| This is the kind of thing France often wants to do yet never
| implements.
| jddj wrote:
| The inertia (or actively maintained status quo) in Europe towards
| the US platforms is massive.
|
| Anecdotally, I recently found myself in the local government
| building of a small European town. They run several free
| digitalisation classes for small businesses.
|
| The options? Introductory classes to:
|
| - LinkedIn
|
| - WhatsApp business
|
| - Facebook and Instagram ads
|
| - Gsuite
| XorNot wrote:
| It might be worth considering that if those are intro classes,
| then it's not like they can't be easily replaced: it's not like
| the audience is wedded to any of those at an introductory
| level.
| cmiles8 wrote:
| I wish them luck, but while saying folks will drop the dominant
| apps seems all the rage at the moment people have been saying
| this for decades with almost no real progress at scale.
|
| The only way to accomplish this at scale is to build something
| that is legit better and let the market decide. Anything else is
| just principled wishful thinking.
| alecco wrote:
| Better is not enough make people change, sadly. This is why VCs
| burn so much money to establish products.
| watwut wrote:
| The big difference is that USA was nor perceived as a threat
| before. It is acutely dangerours now and there is no
| perspective of it changing.
| blibble wrote:
| > while saying folks will drop the dominant apps seems all the
| rage at the moment people have been saying this for decades
| with almost no real progress at scale.
|
| fortunately, legislation can help here
|
| start with critical national infrastructure to build the
| market, and work your way out from there
|
| the US regime cannot be permitted to have an off button for our
| infrastructure
| graemep wrote:
| This is the biggest step any country (other than China and
| those subject to US sanctions) has made to reducing their
| dependence on American big tech.
|
| Its still a small step, but its a start.
|
| > The only way to accomplish this at scale is to build
| something that is legit better and let the market decide
|
| You can push people to do this. The government can switch as a
| matter of policy. It can require companies bigging for
| government contracts to only use systems based in approved
| countries. It can make it a requirement for regulated
| industries (e.g. infrastructure, critical financial services,
| etc.)
| i_love_retros wrote:
| It's only recently that the united states has become an enemy
| of the EU though. I'd say there's much more motivation to move
| to other software and platforms now.
| cmiles8 wrote:
| I don't think that's accurate. These issues were always
| there, but "the sky is falling" rhetoric is all the rage at
| the moment (in both directions).
| bahmboo wrote:
| It doesn't have to be the sky is falling, it's reality. In
| one year Europe went from "can we fight Russia with
| American help" to "can we fight Russia without American
| help" to "can we fight America". If Europe doesn't get
| itself unencumbered with the US they are in a very
| vulnerable position.
| spockz wrote:
| The dependencies were always there. But never before (since
| the forming of NATO) has the US leadership so clearly and
| concretely distanced themselves from Europe. Before that
| there was a strong sense of North America and Europe
| belonging to the same "liberal" world where many things did
| be relatively cheaply exchanged.
|
| The dependencies were therefore seen as a non issue for
| many. Banks have always been skeptics of the cloud because
| of the ability of the American government to just pull the
| plug if they want. Before it was a theoretical possibility
| that still came up in risk analysis. Today it is something
| that could even concretely happen.
|
| Prosecutors and others have been denied access to their
| official work email etc because they displeased the
| president.
|
| Trust has been eroded.
| cmiles8 wrote:
| This is all a roundabout way to get Europe to step up and
| do more for its own defense... the current negotiation
| style leaves much to be desired, but it's shaking things
| up as intended.
| Epa095 wrote:
| Yes, it's clearly all 5d chess to manipulate a retarded
| ally to do what's best for it against it's will, all
| going according to plan. /s
|
| Good luck meeting China without friends. Clearly
| brilliant statesmanship. Europe is able to read, the
| room, the situation, and the National Security Strategy,
| which makes it pretty clear that meddling with European
| democracy is a important foreign policy.
| spockz wrote:
| The thing is that the cat is out of the bag now. EU
| alternatives are popping up. Governmental services are
| moving to national or regional (EU) services/providers.
|
| There is a difference between a nation (USA) and its
| president having the theoretical power to shut down whole
| parts of your infrastructure which everyone agrees "that
| would never happen" versus it having happened multiple
| times already. Then the setting up of separate boards,
| basically retreating from NATO/NAVO, the military threat
| against Greenland. It doesn't inspire confidence. He has
| been breaking with "things that you just don't do" for a
| while now.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > "the sky is falling" rhetoric
|
| It's hardly rhetoric, from the European perspective. The EU
| is already embroiled in a proxy war against a major power
| in Ukraine, and are now faced with the prospect of their
| strongest erstwhile ally moving to annex EU territory.
|
| Simultaneous war on two fronts, where one opponent is
| deeply embedded in your supply chains, is an existential
| threat.
| cmiles8 wrote:
| I'll give you that the current US administration isn't
| exactly scoring points for subtle diplomatic negotiation,
| but remember too that most of the United States was
| purchased from other countries.
|
| It's not a completely bonkers idea that the US could
| purchase all or some of Greenland. In the end, we'll
| probably just see a strengthening or enforcement of the
| existing treaty for US military use of Greenland which is
| all the US wanted. Europe is still getting used to the
| president's rather unique, and yes aggressive,
| negotiation style born out of his NYC real estate
| developer days.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > Europe is still getting used to the president's rather
| unique, and yes aggressive, negotiation style
|
| I think you'll find the EU doesn't have much appetite for
| this sort of thing. They'll take the risk at face-value,
| and put mitigations in place going forward (including if
| necessary, divestment from US tech firms)
| skeletal88 wrote:
| Yes, but the difference is that Denmark has said it many,
| many times, that it Does Not want to sell Greenland. The
| discussion should have ended there. But Trump kept saying
| "We will get it one way or the other" and did not rule
| out the use of force, etc. This is just insane and will
| alienate any allies. The Greenlanders also have said that
| they do not want to be part of the US. Some americans
| have joked that you could pay 100k to every greenlander
| and they would accept you happily, which would be totally
| stupid. They would lose the free education and free
| healthcare that Denmark provides currently. Having to pay
| for medical insurance or to send your children to
| university from Greenland would wipe out any of the money
| the US would pay to bribe the greenlanders. It would be
| an unbelievably bad deal for them.
|
| You did not need any more strengthening of any military
| treaties with Denmark, the US could already open as any
| military bases on Greenland, there was nothing stopping
| you from doing that, sending more of your army there to
| deter China or Russia, or whatever else. Here,
| https://people.com/donald-trump-wants-ownership-
| greenland-ps... He is saying he needs to own it to
| personally feel good. How does this make sense
| diplomatically?
|
| Any excuses you make will not make him look better or
| make him look like he can be trusted. If you want to
| achieve something in international politics have to be
| made carefully, not by threatening to annex Canada or
| parts of your allied countries.
|
| Your president is just destroying the good image and
| goodwill towards the US with his 'negotiation style'. His
| style is childish bullying and temper tantrums, he can
| not be taken seriously as a reliable partner when he can
| say one thing today, and tomorrow say something totally
| different, even if you think you have reached an
| agreement with him on something.
| XorNot wrote:
| This post right here is why the rest of the free world
| will never trust the US again.
| iamEAP wrote:
| There were always issues with Nordstream, but the project
| rapidly imploded only after the war made it all untenable.
|
| Tariffs + coercion via-vis EU tech regulation + Greenland
| are rapidly making the transatlantic tech status quo
| untenable.
| ares623 wrote:
| Sure the issue was always there for you or people like you.
| But for a majority of the EU population there was no
| problem until very recently. And now people like you are
| starting to have more leverage to influence people who can
| make the right calls.
| skeletal88 wrote:
| The US is not trustworthy anymore. Your president is
| switching randomly from on insane idea to something equally
| insane. Canada doesnt want to the the 51st state. Greenland
| is part of Denmark, which is in the EU, which has been the
| biggest ally for the US and now your president was not
| ruling out using force to take over greenland.
|
| Trump fans are saying "this is how he negotiates, don't
| mind", etc but anything coming from him os just random
| bullshit and nothing he says can be believed because the
| next day he can be 180* on the same topic.
|
| There were no such issues between any of the US allies in
| the time I can remember.
|
| We thought that whenwe help the US in Afganistan and Iraq
| then it will be remembered when we need help, but now Trump
| threw all that goodwill down the toilet when he said that
| the allies basically didnt do anything.
| thfuran wrote:
| >but anything coming from him os just random bullshit and
| nothing he says can be believed because the next day he
| can be 180* on the same topic
|
| Not to mention that threatening to go to war with an ally
| as a negotiating tactic is crazy regardless of how
| inconsistent you are about it.
| mrabcx wrote:
| Even during president Obama. the US spied on Merkel's mobile
| phone.
| adev_ wrote:
| > Even during president Obama. the US spied on Merkel's
| mobile phone.
|
| There is a huge gap between spying on someone phone and
| calling openly to invade a territory.
|
| Every country spies on each other for various reasons
| (industrial, geopolitics) even between allies.
|
| But I think we can agree that an ally _by definition_ is
| not suppose to ring your door bell and say he wants to take
| your land against your will.
| harikb wrote:
| Products don't necessarily win on merit.
|
| Microsoft Teams "won" entirely because it was given away free
| with Office. Even though it is acceptable these days, it was
| horrible when it started. There is no way it could have won
| without unlimited backing from a bigger force.
|
| You have to see EU trying these things in the same light.
| cmiles8 wrote:
| Sure, Betamax was technically superior to VHS. But in the end
| the market still decides... nobody said "better" means
| technically superior... just something people want to use an
| other options available to them. "Good enough" with
| attractive value to the individual/business typically wins.
| jetbalsa wrote:
| Not to get too much into a debate about Beta vs VHS, but
| VHS did have longer run times and its cheapness was the
| main reason it won, It just fit better for the consumer
| overall desires at the time
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Exactly. It's about whose definition of "better" you use.
| Sony thought that a better picture would win out, and it
| did where that mattered: TV studios and video-journalists
| used Betamax until digital formats took over. For
| consumers, "better" meant cheaper tapes and longer run
| time.
|
| JVC also licensed the VHS format to many manufacturers,
| so there was a lot of competition on recorders, further
| driving the price of ownership down. I don't recall
| anyone ever selling Betamax other than Sony.
|
| Edit: JVC actually released VHS as an open standard, not
| a license, per Wikipedia.
| appointment wrote:
| Pro TV used Betacam, not Betamax. Same physical tape, but
| four instead of two tape heads and a much faster tape
| speed.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Sure, and right now, a product being owned by a corporation
| susceptible to direct influence from the US government is a
| massive negative when people are evaluating products.
|
| The evalutation metric for various vital projects has
| massively changed over the last couple years. These
| European products still need to be technically good, but
| they no longer need to be better than American products in
| order to find customers.
|
| With the current level of geopolitical tensions, this is
| nowhere near enough to cause a massive exodous where all
| systems that were previously working fine are ripped apart
| and replaced with new systems, *but* one can be sure that
| whenever people are looking at new projects, or updates to
| old systems, the evalutation metrics have changed quite a
| bit, and this is creating strong momentum for European
| tech.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Technology connections did a video on Betamax vs VHS that
| debunked this in a practical sense as Betamax had a version
| II that allowed 2 hour recordings, the quality was slightly
| better to early VHS instead the significant improvement of
| beta I (original standard)
|
| Retail movie releases used II since most movies could fit
| on one tape. Beta I was rare and later betamax decks just
| ignored it or something for compatibility.
|
| VHS HQ and HiFi, which came much later when beta was
| basically dead, was probably better than beta II and close
| to beta I in quality
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The EU can also ban access to US products, once EU
| alternatives are available, for example. "National security"
| or whatever PR is needed to make the case.
|
| I'm unsure the EU could build and require anything worse than
| Teams, considering the open source landscape for that product
| category, for example. The primitives exist, scale them up
| and lock out US companies from the EU market with policy.
| Recycle the capital internally, just like VC funds do with
| their portfolio companies.
| irusensei wrote:
| I'm absolutely against banning usage of computer programs
| and platforms BUT I would rally for getting Teams banned
| from the face of the earth and applying a law to prevent
| Microsoft to attempt to create or acquire any kind of
| communicator for the next 50 years.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It wasn't seen as a priority national security measure
| before.
|
| Now we have a US leader who may wake up tomorrow and put 100%
| tariffs on cloud services to EU corps or have the NSA demand
| chat logs.
| dutchCourage wrote:
| The security issue is real and the main motivation behind
| decoupling from US cloud services.
|
| Export tarrifs aren't really a thing, particularly for
| software. Making US cloud more expensive would only make
| transitioning away from them faster.
| jbm wrote:
| I have made most of my karma off of trashing Teams, and while
| it is "better" than it was before (I rarely get infinite
| loops crashing my browser now), it is hard to call it
| acceptable.
|
| Yesterday I was supposed to have a call. I have the app open
| and it never once let me know that there was a meeting. The
| entire purpose is supposed to be collaboration with other
| people; if they aren't going to notify me on the web app,
| what's the point?
|
| I know a lot of it is because of their need to support an
| infinite number of potential configurations, but if it had
| been a protocol instead of an app, we would have had the
| perfect frontend by now. (But then, how would they be
| stealing all of my data?)
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > _Yesterday I was supposed to have a call. I have the app
| open and it never once let me know that there was a
| meeting._
|
| Lol, we use WebEx, and someone actually went and developed
| an internal app to make it usable by piloting WebEx through
| accessibility APIs (including starting the call a minute
| before the meeting starts).
|
| So it's not just a failing of Teams.
| Manfred wrote:
| I have also seen situations where sales opted into Microsoft
| early on. When they grew in relation to engineering forced
| the rest of the company to standardize to Microsoft products
| so they could get better rates and "save money".
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Even though it is acceptable these days_
|
| Have you _used_ Teams these days? If you think it 's
| acceptable, I suggest that may be the Stockholm Syndrome
| kicking in.
| IshKebab wrote:
| He didn't say _good_. I 'd agree with his assessment. It's
| _acceptable_.
|
| And for all its many flaws it does have some advantages
| over Meet (which is what my company switched to it from):
|
| * Remote control of other people's desktops (except on
| Linux unfortunately). Meet has no solution for that.
| Endless "no up a bit, left.. no you had it. Third one from
| the top. Here let me share my screen instead".
|
| * Conversations you have in meetings don't disappear into
| the aether. In fact for recurring meetings it's even clever
| enough to use the same chat.
|
| * You can directly call people. Meet requires you to create
| a meeting and then invite someone.
|
| Ok that's all I've got. My list of complaints is _much_
| longer, but even so it just about makes it to _acceptable_.
|
| Kind of crazy that Google hasn't just solved this though.
| Clone Slack, integrate it with Meet. Make a high
| performance desktop client (not web app) with remote
| control. They'd make a fortune.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| This blind faith in "the market" is charming, but the market is
| just the outcome of enforceable ground rules (national,
| international) followed then by price/value.
| mamcx wrote:
| What I wonder is if there will be the pay for enticing
| developers to build it.
|
| I think many of use will love to do this kind of stuff, but is
| mostly US companies that pay for it.
|
| For example, I like to make RDBMs and ERPs kind of software,
| but here in LATAM is near impossible to get funding for it, how
| is in Europe?
| nradov wrote:
| If they want to build viable competitive products then
| they'll need to pay for a lot more roles than just
| developers.
| mamcx wrote:
| Certainly, there is a whole industry if you count support,
| sales, infra, testing, etc.
|
| But I _suspect_ that is developers the main problem for the
| bootstrap phase (ie: that is already the case here in
| LATAM)
| electronsoup wrote:
| > The only way to accomplish this at scale is to build
| something that is legit better and let the market decide.
| Anything else is just principled wishful thinking.
|
| No they need to tariff/ban things that are non-EU
| jorvi wrote:
| The way out of this hole is by the EU mandating a 5, 10 and 20
| year plan for getting off US tech and pivoting to open source.
|
| Start with a target small municipality in each country. Switch
| to SUSE (with a desktop that supports Active Directory),
| Collabora and what not. Then switch the mail stack. Then the
| files stack. Etc.
|
| Next step is scaling it up to a small city, then a big city,
| then a province, and finally the whole country.
|
| Parallel to this you do the universities and militaries.
|
| The beauty of this is that the untold tens (hundreds?) of
| billions EUR in Microsoft / Google / Amazon support contracts
| will now instead flow into open source support contracts. Can
| you imagine the insane pace LibreOffice would improve at if a
| few billion EUR in support contracts was paid to Collabora each
| year?
|
| One thing the government would have to resist is thinking that
| open source is 'free' and that they can cut their yearly spend
| on digital office stuff to the bone.
| McDyver wrote:
| I see a "top-down" approach, actually.
|
| Government and public services change to (ideally) open
| source, and "impose"/"require" downstream compatibility.
|
| This would create the incentive and make change easier
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > The way out of this hole is by the EU mandating a 5, 10 and
| 20 year plan for getting off US tech and pivoting to open
| source.
|
| I agree. All this hem and hawing will not get them anywhere,
| and will just have Microsoft again dropping bundles of money
| at the foot of officials to "pretty please don't switch
| awawy."
|
| Mandate it, top down, make it law, then officials have the
| legal mandate to fall back on to tell Microsoft and the
| others to pound sand when they come knocking with the
| briefcase full of money.
| omnimus wrote:
| The problem is that european politicians don't want to kill
| the tech $$$. They just want to bring the revenue home. They
| don't understand that they will never make EU big tech and
| that their only feasible path forward to get rid of US tech
| is also the path that kills the goose.
|
| But that process is inevitable, it's already happening. What
| is not inevitable is hardware sovereignty. If EU doesn't have
| some form of hardware independence then they might just end
| up forced to use the US software stack.
| jorvi wrote:
| > If EU doesn't have some form of hardware independence
| then they might just end up forced to use the US software
| stack.
|
| In a multipolar world you don't critically need that if you
| can order your hardware from party I when party C or U
| shuts you out.
|
| Remember that China is running their own Android island
| with Huawei and Xiaomi. Yes, a lot of Chinese people flash
| the Play Store, but it isn't strictly necessary. Not hard
| to imagine the EU and India creating their own islands too.
|
| Kind of wicked we have to think this way though. I much
| prefer a world with the maximum healthy amount of open
| trade and travel.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Good luck getting the EU off Android and iOS?
| Epa095 wrote:
| It would take Samsung (or what's left of Nokia) a whole 10
| seconds to produce a Google-free phone based on the Android
| Open Source Project (AOSP) if there was a market for it.
| Which it might soon be.
| SirMaster wrote:
| So AOSP would survive fine after stopping taking in new
| code from Google?
| Epa095 wrote:
| What scenario is this?
|
| If AOSP is suddenly the only acceptable smart-os on
| phones for 600 million people, I think it would work out
| yes.
| tdrz wrote:
| There's /e/OS, a fork of Android
| bigyabai wrote:
| Also Sailfish, which supports running Android apps:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS
| eigenspace wrote:
| While, there's a real risk of overselling the enthusiasm right
| now, there's a much bigger risk of complacency making dinosaurs
| stick their head in the sand and think nothing ever changes.
|
| IMO, if ones thinks the lessons about competition between tech
| platforms from the previous few decades are 1-to-1 applicable
| in the current geopolitical, economical, and strategic state of
| the world, then that person is either not paying attention, or
| they're in denial.
|
| Companies, governments, and militaries are looking around their
| office right now and realizing their organization could grind
| to a complete halt if Trump made a phone call to a very small
| handful of executives.
|
| That's an existential risk, and organizations absolutely can
| and do choose products that are on their face inferior if it
| helps shield them from existential risk. (Western) Tech is one
| of few industries that has no institutional experience with
| dealing with geopolitical risk, but it's happening now.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| The market makes decisions on quality and pride but it can also
| use politics, patriotism, religion, and other factors which may
| not have the greatest impact compared to the first two.
|
| It's possible that both the appeal of home* grown product
| (patriotism) combined with distaste of the current US
| government and the tech companies that support it (politics) is
| enough to push people to switch even if the quality is lower
| labcomputer wrote:
| > I wish them luck, but while saying folks will drop the
| dominant apps seems all the rage at the moment people have been
| saying this for decades with almost no real progress at scale.
|
| This feels different.
|
| Up to now there hasn't a really good technical reason to want
| to switch from, say, Zoom to Teams (or vice versa). You might
| switch because of network effects: all your friends / coworkers
| are on the other one. But, video chat is basically a commodity
| (all work "good enough" and the features are broadly similar)
| and has been for quite some time.
|
| What's different is that now _all_ (or nearly all) the people
| contributing to the network effect _simultaneously_ have a
| reason to want to switch. So the network effect, which was the
| only thing that was really "sticky" about any of these apps,
| is gone.
| jp_nc wrote:
| And also, the speed at which you can build solutions has
| significantly been reduced because of AI. I wonder if this
| plays a role in their decision.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > The only way to accomplish this at scale is to build
| something that is legit better and let the market decide.
| Anything else is just principled wishful thinking
|
| Governments have many levers to pull that are only loosely part
| of "the market".
|
| Want in on those juicy government contracts? Work in a
| regulated industry (defence contractor, healthcare, banking)?
| Sell products into the state-funded education system?
|
| Congratulations, you now use the government-mandated messaging
| infrastructure.
| delis-thumbs-7e wrote:
| Sry but the world where "markets decided" pretty much anything
| ended when Trump started his second term. EU is finishing a
| trade deal with India that creates a market of 2 billion
| people. Europe and China are closer than ever. I'm sure we can
| get along with Teans and police state just fine.
| mrits wrote:
| Half the EU are a few percentage points away from electing
| their version of trump.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, decade(s?) ago some city or state in Germany decided to
| ditch Microsoft for Linux and OpenOffice. It didn't go well and
| they eventually backtracked.
| lm28469 wrote:
| You're delusional if you think people willingly use half of
| these products, remove the billions spent on lobbyism and these
| things will evaporate in 5 years tops
| internet_points wrote:
| > legit better
|
| Than ... Microsoft Teams? You're saying Microsoft Teams won
| because it is better than the competition?
| tdrz wrote:
| Teams is not better than Slack, but here we are ...
| lateforwork wrote:
| I really hope Marc Andreessen is happy.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/andreessen-horowitz-co-fou...
| Sebguer wrote:
| He's helping with a fascist takeover of the country, why
| wouldn't they be happy?
| i_love_retros wrote:
| >The reason he is choosing Trump over President Joe Biden boils
| down primarily to one major issue -- he believes Trump's
| policies are much more favorable for tech
| energy123 wrote:
| Carried interest loophole
| ginko wrote:
| Gee, if only there had been a European market leader in instant
| messaging, voice over IP and video chat in the 2000s already.
| Then we could just use that instead of Microsoft Teams.
| nasretdinov wrote:
| Skype wasn't _that_ great at chat especially to be completely
| fair. But it definitely was okay for everything, that's for
| sure...
| atomtamadas wrote:
| Instead of these politics driven projects that usually fail at
| least partially what tends to succeed is if an angry nerd starts
| a project to replace something with free alternative, such as
| Linux, VLC, ffmpeg, ...
| bananasandrice wrote:
| > if an angry nerd
|
| Ah yes, the mythical AngryOpenSourceNerd, heard about his Kick
| channel.
| somat wrote:
| For what it's worth, if you want a self hosted replacement for
| Zoom Galene has worked great for me, The server requirements are
| remarkably low, especially if you are like me and just need a
| personal video chat to a few people. I run it on an old apu-2
| with openbsd(which is just about the worst combination and it
| still works great) As a bonus there is no client, that is, the
| client is just a web page so very low friction to get people to
| use it.
|
| https://galene.org/
| RockstarSprain wrote:
| +1.
|
| I am running a Galene instance via the YunoHost self-hosting
| package on a small dedicated server (2 cores, 4gb of RAM).
|
| So far it's much better than I expected, both in terms of
| latency and the overall video/audio quality. Feels better than
| Jitsi and even a FaceTime / WhatsApp call.
| jech wrote:
| > So far [Galene is] much better than I expected, both in
| terms of latency and the overall video/audio quality
|
| Latency is better, since Galene uses an unordered buffer
| instead of a jitter buffer. Lipsynch should also be slightly
| better, as Galene carefully computes audio/video offsets and
| forwards the result to the receiver so it can compensate.
|
| Audio and video quality, on the other hand, should be roughly
| the same, unless Jitsi is doing something wrong.
| pengaru wrote:
| What happened to Jitsi?
| prmoustache wrote:
| It is still a thing. I used it 2 days ago actually.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Seriously, why are people still using twitter? It's owned by a
| Nazi supporter, is full of white nationalist racist posters, and
| seems a strange place to announce you are moving off of American
| tech.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Not to mention JD Vance uses it so it's like sharing a room
| with a massive dog turd
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Because for better or worse it still has significance and
| popularity. Nothing else really comes close.
| eb0la wrote:
| Politicians use it a lot. Because media and journalist started
| using it.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Because they EU still can't make software and most people in
| America don't care.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Link to the actual article:
| https://www.numerama.com/cyberguerre/2167301-la-france-veut-...
|
| Earlier repo submission:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766004
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Americans fail to appreciate a few things about our economy
|
| 1. We have a large homgoneous market where you can build a
| product and it's expected it can succeed for hundreds of millions
| of Americans
|
| 2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of
| hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market
|
| 3. there's not an easy 3rd economy that replaces EUs wealth,
| population, and comfort with English + technology
|
| When we piss everyone off in the EU tech company growth gets
| kneecapped and limited to US / Canada. Theres not an easy market
| to expand to without much deeper focus on that specific market
| and its needs, for much fewer returns.
| bestouff wrote:
| ... and Canada doesn't seem very keen on going on like this.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Yeah, assuming Canada is just going to keep going along
| buying American software and services seems pretty naive.
| There's less capacity to build alternatives in Canada than
| there is in Europe, but as Europe builds out alternative
| ecosystems, Canadians will likely be just as eager customers
| as Europeans (if not more eager).
|
| The beauty of so many of these solutions being open source
| solutions also means that it creates avenues for cooperation
| between organizations that have no official cooperation
| agreement.
|
| E.g. The Austrian federal Military, the state of Schleswig-
| Holstein, and the city of Leon have no direct forum for
| cooperating on software projects, yet all three are
| contributing to the development and rapid adoption of
| Nextcloud. Canada can easily get in on this too.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Canada has roughly the population of California, and Aus/NZ
| combined have populations less than California. For these
| types of market analyses, these countries are closer to US
| states in market potential.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Sure.
|
| Canada has a GDP of:
|
| Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho,
| New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia, Delaware, Maine,
| Rhode Island, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska,
| Wyoming and Vermont
|
| put together.
|
| That's the equivalent of 18 states.
|
| Throw in Aus and NZ too and you add another 7 states --
| Louisiana, Alabama, Utah, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nevada and
| Iowa.
|
| Ontario alone has a larger GDP than 45 of the 50 US states,
| and a bigger GDP than New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia,
| Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, North Dakota, South
| Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont put together.
| realo wrote:
| I am pretty sure many in Minnesota right now would love
| to be able to exit the current fascist regime and be part
| of Canada instead ...
| eigenspace wrote:
| Canada isn't coming to save you. Get your own house in
| order before it burns ours down.
| boringg wrote:
| What's is your argument? That tech companies don't need
| them? Sounds like such a brutally myopic american take.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| India, but many companies aren't willing to price for the
| market nor respect corporate norms there.
| benterix wrote:
| I guess the point here is to keep high prices. If you lower
| the prices, you can try to enter even Africa, but it's simply
| easier to keep more or less uniform pricing, unless you're
| Steam-size and are able to spend resources on doing this
| properly.
| zulban wrote:
| What corporate norms are notably different in this context?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Weird, because software has probably the lowest marginal cost
| of goods sold of any product or service. You can make money
| selling at almost any price.
|
| Yes, there is some cost to provisioning and running a cloud
| account. It's pretty small though. Some disk space and
| electricity.
|
| By "corporate norms" I presume you mean bribes paid to the
| person making the purchasing decision?
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| No, thank you. I would rather run Chinese spyware.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > nor respect corporate norms there.
|
| What do you mean?
| mc32 wrote:
| From a world domination point of view fragmentation is bad. On
| the other hand heterogeneity is good for choice and freedom as
| at least on paper if one platform kicks you off due to whatever
| curbs on freedom, you have alternative choices.
|
| Heterogeneity/fragmentation also makes it harder for companies
| and countries to impose their mores on others. From that PoV
| Africa also should develop its own tools so as not to be
| subject to either North American or European values but their
| own values.
| mrits wrote:
| I think they are a decade or two late to migrate away. They
| will end up developing their own in a time where these are loss
| leaders. It's likely they will pay for it in a bundle while
| just not using it.
|
| Not to mention in my experience EU companies don't know how to
| migrate away from anything as their tech companies operate at
| the efficiency of a US government agency.
| bparsons wrote:
| Canada is in the same boat as the EU -- desperately looking for
| alternative vendors at the moment.
| hintymad wrote:
| In a way, isn't it what the Americans and even the current
| administration want? We want a strong Europe who is keen on
| preserving and developing the glorious modern civilization that
| it created. We want a strong Europe who can build and innovate
| instead of regulating and fining. In contrast, we certainly
| don't want see the disastrous joke like Northvolt. We certainly
| don't want to see the joke that BASF shut down its domestic
| factories and invested north of 10B in China for state-of-the-
| art factories. Oh, and we certainly don't want to see a Europe
| that couldn't defeat Russia and couldn't even out-manufacture
| Russia, even though Russia's GDP is merely of Guangzhou's.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Europe will then redirect the 300B euros it was investing in
| US treasuries annually to Eurobonds, while redirecting the
| $300M in purchasing from US companies to EU companies. This
| is biting the hand that feeds the US.
|
| Europe will buy LNG from Canada instead of the US, and
| continue to purchase imports from China. I agree though that
| a strong EU is needed, in part to defend against the US, as
| well as Russia (until the Russian economy reaches failure).
| CATL is currently building the largest battery factory in
| Europe in Spain.
| hintymad wrote:
| I think they should (in practice there could be something
| in the middle). Yes, they may have more bickering with the
| US, but that's just part of the messy diplomatic process.
| At the end of the day, we want to see strong allies that
| share a compatible value system with us. I'm actually more
| optimistic too: a stronger Europe will earn more respect
| because of their strength. And that respect will lead to
| more negotiation instead of more bickering.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| lol hahaha Europe will "say" and maybe in a few decades
| they might get around to starting some of that. Europe
| still buys gas from Russia; can't even ween itself off it
| during a war.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > lol hahaha Europe will "say" and maybe in a few decades
| they might get around to starting some of that. Europe
| still buys gas from Russia; can't even ween itself off it
| during a war.
|
| _EU countries give final approval to Russian gas ban_ -
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-countries-
| give-fi... | https://archive.today/wOHeR - January 26th,
| 2026
|
| > Under the agreement, the EU will halt Russian liquefied
| natural gas imports by end-2026 and pipeline gas by
| September 30, 2027.
|
| > The law allows that deadline to shift to November 1,
| 2027, at the latest, if a country is struggling to fill
| its storage caverns with non-Russian gas ahead of winter.
|
| > Russia supplied more than 40% of the EU's gas before
| 2022. That share dropped to around 13% in 2025, according
| to the latest available EU data.
|
| > The European Commission plans to also propose
| legislation in the coming months to phase out Russian
| pipeline oil, and wean countries off Russian nuclear
| fuel.
|
| _Ember Energy: The final push for EU Russian gas phase-
| out_ - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-
| final-push-for-... - March 27th, 2025
|
| Considering Russian's invasion started February 24, 2022,
| it's fairly impressive Europe has only needed ~5 years to
| disconnect entirely from Russian gas supplies. Better
| late than never. They've proven they have the capacity to
| achieve these objectives in a timely manner, when
| motivated.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Considering Russian's invasion started February 24,
| 2022,
|
| You mean 2014.
|
| But thank you for proving my point. 2014 - 2027 just a
| short 15 years (assuming it actually happens I have my
| doubts).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You also previously asserted, without citations, that
| Canada could not export natural gas to anyone but the US,
| so forgive me if I don't take your opinion in high regard
| as it relates to global energy trade.
|
| _China and Canada Energy Pact as Canada Aims to Cut
| Reliance on US_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640932 - January
| 2026
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919165 ("This line
| here makes it clear to me you've never really researched
| any of this. Canada doesn't have the ability to export
| that to anywhere but the USA and refuses to even consider
| building another pipeline." -- tick_tock_tick - November
| 13th, 2025)
|
| I'm confident you could make more factually accurate and
| less emotionally driven comments if you tried. Please
| consider it. Very little of the information I rely on for
| my comments is paywall gated, they are web searches away
| for your consumption.
| comonoid wrote:
| Switching gas providers is more difficult than switching
| from Zoom to Google Meet or other alternative.
| Yoric wrote:
| Seen from Europe, the current US administration doesn't want
| a Europe, end of story.
|
| Trump 1.0 already tried to convince EU countries to exit the
| EU.
|
| Trump 2.0 keeps insulting the EU, threatening the EU
| economically and threatening it militarily. To the point
| where even most of the far right EU candidates who were
| betting on being the ${EU COUNTRY} Trump are now doing their
| best to display how they're very much not Trump.
| petre wrote:
| Good thing we're not in the US to terrorize us with the
| ICE.
| oblio wrote:
| > even the current administration want
|
| Sure, the US admin wants a strong US military, for example,
| ideally with 100% US weapons. Etc.
| boricj wrote:
| The current US administration wants a captive Europe. One
| that buys its defense, energy and technology products from
| them. One that sells its territory, regulations and know-how
| to them.
|
| Ask the Department of State if they'd like a European-sized
| French attitude and strategic autonomy.
| johnsmith1840 wrote:
| Current admin has been on record for years saying the same
| thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China,
| warning them about not innovating.
|
| I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems
| the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do
| something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to
| hurt them.
|
| Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of
| asking nicely.
|
| Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU: "no"
|
| US: "please do not support our advesaries" EU: "builds
| nordstream"
|
| US: "stop killing innovation" EU: " more regulation"
|
| Now:
|
| US: "We will invade greenland" EU: "omg we need to invest
| in greenland and increase its military support, we will
| send more troops immediately!"
|
| US: "we will pull out of nato" EU: "omg we hate US we need
| to massively increase military spending and industry"
|
| US: "our tech companies will not listen to you" EU: "omg
| big bad america, we should try to make out own"
|
| I don't like it but at the same time, it works? Let EU
| rally against US who cares as long as they actually do
| something.
|
| Simply put absolute best thing for US is a strong EU. China
| is an advesary that will take the entire US system to
| challenge if EU can handle the rest then it's a win.
| alopha wrote:
| Something tells me when the 'something' is a major trade
| deal with China suddenly it'll be 'oh my god how could
| you'. The US wants a EU vassal, what they're going to get
| is an EU that realigned itself to be politically and
| economically equidistant from the US and China.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| The whole point is the USA has been complaining that the
| EU was/is reducing itself to a vassal. No matter what the
| USA said or did before they didn't seem to care that they
| had no power anymore because the USA was there to take
| care of them.
|
| The EU can't realign itself with China because that would
| destroy the last fragile bits of the EU economy that are
| left. They are already having issues with the excess
| supply lands on their shores even since the USA started
| tariffs with China. They can't deal with this long term.
| oblio wrote:
| > US: "stop killing innovation" EU: " more regulation"
|
| Have you ever stopped to think that maybe a large number
| of Europeans look at the lack of US regulation with
| disgust?
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| If this is some kind of move, fair play, but its ham
| fisted because rank and file westerners across the world
| have lost respect and faith in America, that wont be
| rebuilt by some other president. Nobody will want fighter
| jets etc controlled by America. Perhaps USA is fine with
| it but to me it feels severely damaging.
| trymas wrote:
| > Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU:
| "no"
|
| What this meant between the lines for 60+ years is
| "please increase military spending on US overpriced
| weapons that we gonna sell you, weapons will be degraded
| versions of native counterparts and don't think about
| making your own independent military industry. Oh by the
| way bring those weapons when we will do 20 years of
| failed occupation in Middle East, because we are the only
| country in NATO that triggered article 5 and bunch of
| Euros died for nothing. Because that's the deal, we
| protect you, for the economic price of helping our
| imperial hegemony since 1940s stay at the top, but
| suddenly we decided this is a bad deal after all."
| pseudony wrote:
| It never ceases to amaze me the contortions some people
| put themselves through to make this US administration
| seem sane or even vaguely interested in the flourishing
| of Europe, Canada or the wider west.
| monooso wrote:
| > I don't know if this was planned internally but it
| seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually
| do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is
| going to hurt them.
|
| This is an interesting take. You appear to be suggesting
| that the US has the EU's best interests at heart.
|
| It ignores the fact that, on the rare occasion the Trump
| administration was not actively trying to undermine the
| EU, their "helpful advice" has always boiled down to "you
| should be more like us, and not being like us means
| you're failing."
|
| My opinion, which I believe is common among Europeans, is
| that the opposite is true.
| skeletal88 wrote:
| No. The US does not want an independent EU. It wants an
| EU that lets any US company do here whatever it wants. It
| wants the EU to split up so it can force bad trade deals
| on our countries. We don't want a trade deal that lets
| you sell chlorinated chicken or other stuff that is
| currently banned here.
|
| The US wants us to spend more on military but not on our
| own weapons but to spend all our money buying US made
| stuff. Now what the president of the US achieved is that
| we want to spend more to develop our own local
| alternatives and improve them, not buy more from the US.
| Why would we buy from you if your president threatens to
| invade Greenland?
|
| Also - military spending was increased not because Trump
| bullied us into it doing it. It was seen as necessary
| because of russian attack on Ukraine. Trump was not some
| genius diplomacy mastermind. He is a man child that is
| pissed of for not getting the Nobel peace price. How
| childish is that? This is not some person who can be
| taken seriously in any way.
|
| Regulation is good, Micro-USB and USB-C for phones and
| computer chargers is better than the dozens of different
| chargers that was before. Only Apple was unhappy and
| didn't want it. We don't want big US tech companies to
| steal our personal data and do whatever they want wit it.
|
| Also - now trump is pissed off at Canada for trying to
| get a trade deal with China, when it was he himself who
| first said Canada should become a part of the US, started
| with random bs tariffs on canadian goods, etc. What else
| can you expect from Canada, why should they not try to
| find a more reliable trade partner? How can it be
| rational, what Trump is doing?
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > In a way, isn't it what the Americans and even the current
| administration want? We want a strong Europe who is keen on
| preserving and developing the glorious modern civilization
| that it created.
|
| This is a pretty ridiculous statement.
|
| It is clear that the US under current administration is
| absolutely hostile to EU, and that the US in general is
| untrustworthy when a good portion of its people see the
| actions of the current administration as desirable.
| m00dy wrote:
| oh man, I agree with what you are saying but EU is a joke.!
| jb1991 wrote:
| > isn't it what the Americans and even the current
| administration want?
|
| no, I certainly do not read that _at all_. This is not what
| the U.S. wants -- a genuinely free EU that has its own
| economy and source of tech entirely independent of the U.S.
| That is quite the opposite of what the U.S. wants but it
| inevitable that it is what the U.S. will get.
| phearnot wrote:
| > even though Russia's GDP is merely of Guangzhou's
|
| Am I missing something? [1] lists Guangzhou's GDP as 435,746
| M USD, while [2] lists Russia's GDP as 2,173,836 M USD.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_Chinese_cities_
| by_...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(n
| omi...
| hintymad wrote:
| My bad. I meant Guangdong Province
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| I think it's totally great that competing products get produced
| in the EU. Not a bad thing from anyone's perspective except the
| owners of those US companies that will now need to compete.
| eduction wrote:
| It's great yes, but if we in the US weren't proving so
| untrustworthy, EU startups and tech giants could focus on
| building things that actually might out innovate us and
| everyone else. Which would be a win-win.
|
| Instead they will spend a lot time duplicating tools where
| only US companies are providing options, and maybe not
| innovating much if anything in those areas. Or not enough to
| matter much.
|
| I don't blame them. There is value in trusting your tools and
| not risk having them weaponized. It's just sad all around.
| tdrz wrote:
| > It's great yes, but if we in the US weren't proving so
| untrustworthy, EU startups and tech giants could focus on
| building things that actually might out innovate us and
| everyone else. Which would be a win-win. Instead they will
| spend a lot time duplicating tools where only US companies
| are providing options, and maybe not innovating much if
| anything in those areas. Or not enough to matter much.
|
| You could apply this to Slack vs Teams as well. Slack was
| already good, Microsoft just duplicated their work, came
| out with an inferior product and won. So, was it worth it?
| XorNot wrote:
| Teams won by being good enough and bundled into O365.
| There's probably some value in making a product so
| available that people can use it where normally they
| wouldn't have the opportunity.
| ornornor wrote:
| Teams won by being bundled with the rest of the Microsoft
| stack and shoved down captive (corporate) users throats.
| realo wrote:
| Canada is (was?) the single biggest commercial partner of the
| USA and Trump, in one of his tantrums, threatened to destroy
| that this week, with 100% tariffs.
|
| Canada is very much in the same boat as the EU.
| brightball wrote:
| Why did he threaten 100% tariffs?
| ihaveajob wrote:
| Delusion? Dementia? Being surrounded by yes-men?
| kl4m wrote:
| He did not like the Canadian prime minister's speech about
| "great powers" weaponizing economic integration, so he
| decided to prove him right.
| CMay wrote:
| Because Canada has been in trade talks with China and may
| potentially lower its tariffs on China which gives them a
| back door into the US. There are some specifics and it's
| all conditional. It depends on the kinds of deals it
| settles on.
| rchaud wrote:
| It's not a back door to anything. It's competition for
| the US and Japanese automotive manufacturers who are
| protected by the existing tariffs.
| CMay wrote:
| It's multiple things. Yes, the automotive manufacturers
| matter not just for business sense, but because
| manufacturing base is important to be able to leverage in
| case of a war. Manufacturing lines played key roles in
| WW2.
|
| In addition to that, since we're on the car angle,
| Chinese EVs are basically just privacy nightmares. I
| mean, all cars are at this point, but that's why we
| definitely don't want Chinese ones coming across the
| Canadian border and ending up all over the place.
|
| In the end there are in fact legitimate national security
| concerns that the tariffs address and Canada risks
| weakening those. So, that is the actual answer to why.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| With NAFTA/USMCA it 100% is a backdoor. China couldn't
| give a rats ass about Canada the purpose of these
| proposed trade deal with Canada is to bypass USA tariffs
| into the USA market.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I do feel as why demands reason and I am not sure if you
| can reason with the unreasonable which is what the Canadian
| speech was about in Davos and then POTUS threatened 100%
| tariffs again.
|
| Kind of proved the point of America being an un-reliable
| partner which is what I inferred from Canadian PM's speech
| & his call for middle economies to connect with each other
| and strengthen together to have more leverage overall.
| stackghost wrote:
| Because after the US threatened to destroy our economy
| and/or annex us by force and/or cancel nu-NAFTA and/or
| impose tariffs on us regardless, we realized that Americans
| don't actually want us as friends so we started
| diversifying our trade partnerships and negotiated a mutual
| tariff relaxation deal with China.
|
| The previous Canada-US relationship is gone. Months ago I
| wrote on HN that purely by virtue of having to weather this
| storm, the nature of Canada-US relations will be
| irrevocably and fundamentally altered. Even if Trump and
| his cronies were jailed tomorrow, it's too late. The rest
| of the world understands that Trump is just a symptom of
| the disease affecting America and it's going to get worse,
| not better.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Canada is (was?) the single biggest commercial partner of
| the USA
|
| It is "is" and it will continue to be is probably for the
| rest of Canada existence. You can't trump geography here and
| frankly Canada's decades of under investment in shipping
| infrastructure means they need to use USA ports for foreign
| trade anyway.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| There's only one thing they need to replace if they want to
| show independence: ChatGPT. They had their chance with Mistral
| and failed spectacularly with just creating anti-AI
| regulations.
|
| As a European I'm happy to use their product (and pay for it),
| I just ask one tiny little thing from them: build a better
| model with lower latency.
| ddalex wrote:
| > build a better model with lower latency.
|
| That's mighty impossible for the european mindset - people
| here are not so risk-eager as to through hundreds of billions
| on infrastructure for something that might return a profit.
| tormeh wrote:
| The US capital markets are truly a wonder to behold.
| There's no way to replace that. For good and ill, you'd
| only get weird looks in Europe if you asked for EUR10
| billion for an unproven business model in what's somehow
| also a competitive market.
|
| To be fair this example does look a lot like insanity.
| stackghost wrote:
| >There's no way to replace that.
|
| Nothing is truly irreplaceable
| yobbo wrote:
| This is part of the answer.
|
| I have a theory about the second part; European consumers
| have an even more suspicious view of "corporate overlords"
| if they are domestic/European than if they are American.
| Not because Americans are more trustworthy, but because
| they see Europeans as "anonymous masses" and are therefore
| more "neutral" to the internal struggles in Europe.
|
| Signing up to a service owned by a European "dynastic"
| family, possibly in a neighbouring country, feels like more
| of a surrender of autonomy.
| dmytrish wrote:
| You don't have to love risk to build something you need.
| oulipo2 wrote:
| 1. ChatGPT is shit
|
| 2. We prefer anti-AI regulations and not having a stupid Musk
| indoctrinating half the country
| lm28469 wrote:
| > There's only one thing they need to replace if they want to
| show independence: ChatGPT
|
| Before or after the bubble pops?
|
| What does chatgpt has over competitors again? Besides a
| deranged ceo of course
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| Uhhh... 800m active users?
| dgxyz wrote:
| No. No one really gives a shit about AI other than the tech
| industry and vocal CEO culture which is just using it to bury
| recession and regular lay offs. Otherwise it's novelty value
| and frustration but no one is going to use it or pay enough
| for it to be viable as an economic backbone.
|
| There are many more important things to consider. Like
| literally everything else society sits on top of.
| stackghost wrote:
| >There's only one thing they need to replace if they want to
| show independence: ChatGPT. They had their chance with
| Mistral and failed spectacularly with just creating anti-AI
| regulations.
|
| I think the idea of a Eurostack is more compelling: standard
| office productivity tools that aren't beholden to Microsoft,
| Apple, or Google. That means email, calendar, spreadsheets,
| word processing, slide decks, video conferencing.
|
| Imagine if every government and corporation in the eurozone
| stopped paying for Windows licenses and O365 subscriptions.
|
| LibreOffice exists, of course, but it lacks an alternative to
| Outlook and Teams/Zoom. It would benefit from a benevolent
| corporate sponsor with deeper pockets than TDF which AFAIK is
| purely volunteer-driven.
| me_bx wrote:
| > They had their chance with Mistral and failed spectacularly
| with just creating anti-AI regulations.
|
| What failed with Mistral?
|
| Which anti-AI regulations are we talking about, and don't
| these apply to any solution distributed in the European
| Union, hence also to American ones?
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| China, India. There are little EU-wide network effects similar
| to American ones.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Outside companies don't do well in China
|
| India doesn't have nearly the purchasing power of EU or US
| ben_w wrote:
| China: Everything that puts western buyers off Chinese stuff,
| same happens in reverse. E.g. translation is really really
| hard. Every previous time I have illustrated how bad Google
| Translate is at this by quoting the Chinese output, someone
| has missed the point and replied to tell me the output is so
| bad as to be almost incomprehensible.
|
| India: Lots of people, sure, even after accounting for how
| they've only recently fully electrified and don't all have
| office jobs where software is even slightly relevant... but
| the entire economy even in aggregate let alone per capita
| (and therefore TAM) is smaller, and the linguistic situation
| is (according to what I was told by Indian coworkers at a
| previous job) an exciting mix where everyone speaks 3+
| languages and intermixes them in basically every sentence.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| >2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of
| hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market
|
| I was making hardware at one point, and it took less than a day
| to decide that Europe was not getting our product.
|
| The regulations were insane.
|
| I imagine software is significantly easier, but there is a
| mountain of difference when it comes to electrical and
| plumbing.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Regulations are le bad.
|
| - signed someone from a country where ~10m people still drink
| water from lead pipes (the USA)
| codyb wrote:
| Regulations are neutral. They can be positive, or negative.
| And should be pruned occasionally probably.
|
| And yea, we have lots of old lead pipes here in certain
| places. But let's not pretend we can't find fault with the
| immigrant ghettos in Europe or myriad other issues y'all
| have over there.
|
| There's problems everywhere there's sufficient numbers and
| complexity.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Lead pipes in Chicago were due to union regulatory capture
| and not lack of regulations
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > I was making hardware at one point, and it took less than a
| day to decide that Europe was not getting our product.
|
| If you are unwilling to follow regulations to sell your
| hardware here, then it tells me the regulations are already
| doing its job properly.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| The issue was the sheer number of various
| regulations/standards/(taxes?) changing by country.
|
| It was good enough for the US.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > It was good enough for the US
|
| A lot of things good enough for the US are not considered
| suitable or safe here.
|
| Correctly so, I might add.
|
| If your government is not concerned with public safety,
| why should the EU adopt the same stance?
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Well I am unaware of any deaths or injury from
| dishwashers in the United States, so it seems those
| regulations are fine.
|
| Hope you don't accidentally fall off a historical ledge
| that can't get a handrail.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Probably there are plenty of regulations related to
| safety and suitability regarding electricity, water,
| washing residue on dishes, etc.
|
| Without being more specific, the only thing I can presume
| is that you were unwilling to follow regulations here.
|
| I furnished and equipped my home a couple of years ago,
| and I had plenty of options for dishwashers, from
| multiple brands. Many different models at varied price
| points.
|
| This tells me that serious companies have little problems
| to follow regulations to compete here.
|
| This all really sounds like a "you" problem.
| skeletal88 wrote:
| What was different between countries?
|
| For electronic products, it should be enough to get the
| CE mark on your product, and it can be sold in any
| country. That is the point of the EU, that any company
| can sell it's products or services in the whole union,
| there are regulations, but they are union wide, not
| specific for each country.
|
| Unless you were making something very special, that each
| country wants to and is allowed to regulate separately.
|
| Taxes can be different, the VAT % is different in each
| country. But so is it also in each county or town in the
| US, and your people claim that this is the reason why you
| can't include taxes on prices in grocery shops, which is
| difficult to believe here for our people. So dealing with
| different tax rates shouldn't be big news for you? I
| mean... there are lots of online shops that know about
| different tax rates, it's not difficult. Or you could let
| someone else handle it for you.
| retired wrote:
| If you sell products to all 27 EU members and sell above
| a certain threshold you will have to work with all 27 tax
| offices in regard to VAT. There is OSS for B2C but that
| comes with significant downsides.
|
| The US does not have that.
| petre wrote:
| We are still making hardware and feel the same way about the
| US market. The litigation is insane. Meanwhile the Chinese
| don't give a damn about any of those.
| Zigurd wrote:
| The typical mature technology company in the US earns half
| their revenue from outside the US. Makes it harder to
| understand even tacitly supporting white supremacy and ignorant
| isolationism.
| overfeed wrote:
| A core tenet of the "dark enlightenment" mind-virus that has
| taken hold of the valley is the idea that civilizational
| decline/collapse is not only inevitable but imminent, so they
| don't really mind getting a bigger slice of a smaller cake,
| as long as they are in charge[1].
|
| However, they also are getting citizenships from other
| countries or buying pacific island bunkers: just in case.
|
| 1. The collapse inevitabilitism absolves them of any guilt
| when their actions make the world worse, since "it was going
| to happen anyway"
| XorNot wrote:
| It's also pervasive. The weirdest thing in the world is
| watching someone I know who works for a big tech company
| and moved to the States suddenly wanting to get a New
| Zealand citizenship "just in case".
| jshen wrote:
| It's not clear that anything will be kneecapped. You need more
| than a desire to not use these products, you also need a viable
| alternative. Using products from China or Russia probably isn't
| deemed viable if the concern is politics, which leads to a need
| for Europe or Canada to build alternatives. They have not been
| good at this for a long time, maybe that will change, but it's
| not clear that it will.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| India.
|
| Today India invited President of EU commission on its
| republic day & I feel like there are discussions on signing
| free trade agreement.
|
| I was in my car watching it live when I recognized the
| President of EU commissioner and I was like hey!!
|
| I feel like friendly relations of EU and India are definitely
| on the rise & I have said this previously as well and talked
| to my other cousins/family who works in Coding and most agree
| that a deeper India-EU ties are possible.
|
| One thing we were discussing is if EU could directly invest
| funds in Indian companies instead of going through 10 layers
| of councils/commissioning companies but to people who want to
| either build private solutions (Preferably open source?)
|
| I do feel like that's inevitable too. EU's financing is
| something which I have heard is tricky within EU itself but
| there are some recent initiatives to stream line it and
| perhaps India can even integrate into it if its actually net
| positive for India.
|
| Overall I feel like I am pretty optimistic about India EU
| relations (though I feel like I have bias but what do people
| from EU think respectfully?,I'd be more than happy to answer
| as I talked to my developer cousin about it for almost 2 days
| on how EU India integration especially in tech feels so good
| and inevitable haha :>)
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| I can't wait to see how many indians we are going to be
| forced to import due to that "free trade deal". They must
| have looked at how well it went in canada and said among
| themselves "now that's how you destroy a country we gotta
| get some of that". [EDIT] Hopefully national politicians
| get balls, more balls, and tell their MEPs to vote against
| it like the mercosur deal.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| For what its worth, I have to mention that India losses
| more on this deal than Europe because India's actually
| for the first time iirc imo giving up tariffs or reducing
| them. India has the highest tariff rates for a developing
| country from the start (indiscriminant) and is only
| offering upgrades to EU mostly fwiw in terms of this free
| trade deal.
|
| I have heard this deal be described as EU beneficiary
| from EU sources.
|
| Ah yes, I feel like what you want for an EU is a
| connection with America which has been a very unreliable
| partner would even be an understatement in today's
| geopolitical environment.
|
| It's saddening to see if you are from EU who actually
| believes so. I am more than happy to answer your queries
| in good faith but this just feels like pushing some of
| your own agenda or straight up racist.
|
| We come with open arms even though the massacre of
| jallianwala bagh is still in our memories. There is just
| no question regarding the fact that EU primarily british
| forces had extracted immense wealth from India and India
| had to primarily rebuild it from scratch healing from the
| scars of its colonial past.
|
| There's actually an internal pushback from some people i
| feel like who feel like EU is still imperialist & want to
| shut down this deal from India side given India hasn't
| lost much after the trump's tariffs compared to EU whose
| greenland was in some serious sovereign threats.
|
| But I guess the point is that EU India deal is inevitable
| in this multi polar deal. India wants EU to be the
| financial hub where EU can then reinvest in India and
| India can create technological innovation.
|
| I have tried to respond with as much calm as possible but
| I must admit that your message felt like a must
| admit,ragebait to me in start but I hope that this
| detailed message can help clear up on the details.
|
| If you have any reasonable questions man, feel free to
| ask!
| oblio wrote:
| You do know that the UK literally isn't in the EU, right?
| A lot of your rant is really weird.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I mean perhaps, yea I must've got sidetracked by India's
| colonial past but for the average Indian I would consider
| for that passage that they generally equate UK to be part
| of EU usually. (Perhaps from the pre-brexit era's or just
| in general)
|
| I wouldn't consider it a rant per se but rather that
| India's trying to move towards an multi polar deal and EU
| and India actually has a more net negative and Indians
| are wary of this deal even more so but on aggregate the
| deal would be extremely beneficial if seen from both
| sides with reason.
|
| Also isn't UK trying to pester back into the EU again.
| It's super complicated to follow even as someone who
| follows geo-politics.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_re-
| accession_of_the_...
|
| > I mean perhaps, yea I must've got sidetracked by
| India's colonial past but for the average Indian I would
| consider for that passage that they generally equate UK
| to be part of EU usually. (Perhaps from the pre-brexit
| era's or just in general)
|
| When I started writing about jallianwala bagh I probably
| got distracted because I used to be part of drama club
| and we had this act when we were young and literally the
| amount of people dying and everything truly shocks one &
| genuinely disturbs one.
|
| I recommend this documentary to know more about
| Jallianwala bagh massacre:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9JZJx67cvo
|
| I think my point which kind of got muddied up is that
| India wants to cozy up to EU and build things together
| but not to UK so much. India's extremely sensitive
| regarding UK given its past and in this deal,is cautious
| about EU and UK making ties again or any such discussions
| too.
| coffe2mug wrote:
| This BS should stop (even if you vote for AfD or National
| front)
|
| It is so difficult we still to get a working visa into
| Western EU. The way this is done is by total bureaucratic
| nature of Auslanderbehorde.
|
| When he was CTO from Netflix, Gaurav Agarwal Could not
| get a visa to relocate to Germany. (No more with Netflix)
|
| So even of one has > EUR80K salary and working in Apple
| or MS hq in Munich it is pain in the arse.
|
| On the other hand this is encouraging people to apply and
| get passports. I for one would have never naturalised as
| German if the residence permit was quick and easy.
|
| In summary, there are encouraging people to migrate.
| jpadkins wrote:
| Then EU citizens should support undocumented immigrants,
| as we do in the US. It is inhumane not to give them full
| welfare.
| coffe2mug wrote:
| Is your first sentence sarcasm or you don't see news?
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Sadly I would consider now that America's just not an
| ideal position for immigration right now and this will
| remain a scar for America imo.
|
| Many of people I know (or friends of friends/brothers)
| are migrating from America to either Europe or shifting
| back to India.
|
| I don't think that America can particularly do something
| about it. Trust's pretty fragile.
| pseudony wrote:
| What little immigration we have from India are highly
| educated and thus quite productive individuals.
|
| You're (deliberately?) confusing the issue with e.g.
| illegal immigration or asylum seekers who often come from
| poor, war-torn areas with little education and possibly a
| very different mind-set.
|
| I haven't been accosted by roving gangs of well-educated
| IT Indians, I find the thought funny ;)
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted, Europe has been mostly
| bad at software and services for a long time now. There's a
| reason Linus lives in Oregon.
|
| There's always this occasional chatter about being more
| competitive, and certainly some good ideas -- for example,
| the Draghi Report -- but then nothing happens, or you get a
| few half measures at most.
|
| I guess the one upside of Trump being such an aggressive
| jackass is that it might finally provide enough impetus for
| European countries to take further integration more
| seriously.
| einr wrote:
| _There 's a reason Linus lives in Oregon._
|
| What is the reason Linus lives in Oregon? By his own
| admission, 90% of his workday is reading and answering
| email. We have email in Europe, so that can't be it.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| > When we piss everyone off in the EU tech company growth gets
| kneecapped and limited to US / Canada
|
| I don't think Canada's pretty entertained about US either. US
| is completely alone in this regards.
|
| From what I can feel, US wanted to isolate itself from Global
| economy/Globalization and its _succeeding_ at it.
| beloch wrote:
| Don't take the Canadian market for granted.
|
| There's a _strong_ desire to forge closer links with the EU now
| and reduce dependence on products that could be weaponized
| against us at any time. Geographic proximity doesn 't count for
| much when it comes to software.
| rchaud wrote:
| It should also go without saying that Canada already had a
| vertically integrated telecoms giant in RIM/Blackberry that
| handled end to end smartphone comms globally in the 3G era,
| right down to compressing emails through their servers so
| they could be transmitted efficiently over 2G data networks.
|
| Unfortunately Blackberry was heavily dependent on US telecoms
| and corporations buying their servers and devices to pad
| their profits. And since then, local engineering talent from
| the Kitchener-Waterloo region has been siphoned off by
| Silicon Valley money, mostly to craft elegant solutions to
| deliver more ads to your devices.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| But they EU doesn't make any software... So unless Canada is
| willing to go with Chinese software which would kinda
| invalidate any "moral" ground they have and well frankly the
| USA wouldn't allow it seems like the USA can take it for
| granted.
| beezlewax wrote:
| The EU doesn't make any software? Really now..
| storystarling wrote:
| It feels like France is actually leading on the
| infrastructure side of things right now. With Mistral and
| Hugging Face both in Paris, the open source AI ecosystem
| is pretty heavily concentrated there.
| xp84 wrote:
| > weaponized against us
|
| I take a more optimistic stance here. Trump can only live so
| long, and everybody except basically Trump and John Bolton
| knows that the majority of his idiotic tariffs (and
| nonsensical belligerence like pretending NATO control of
| Greenland doesn't meet all our defense needs) are wealth-
| destroying on net, as well as wealth-destroying for at least
| 10x the number of people than they help (many of them I'd say
| 100-1000x as many). When Trump leaves the stage, those who
| replace him will either be Democrats sprinting at full speed
| from all his policies to demonstrate how not-Trump they are,
| or Republicans who want to grow the economy. Either way, the
| stupidity in a lot of his policies is a temporary condition.
|
| Note that I'm not saying everyone should give the US a pass
| or maintain as much economic and defense dependency on the
| US. But I think it's hyperbolic to make all your long-term
| plans assuming something as stupid and self-defeating as his
| worst anti-ally policies are a new normal, because they harm
| the US at least as much as they harm everyone else, and
| everyone but those two knows this.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Trump already left the stage once. This is something deeply
| wrong with the US that can't be explained away as a phase.
| luke5441 wrote:
| Not only software. Think back to who supplied the vaccines
| during COVID.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| We're also pissing off Canada. This administration is actively
| destroying America to reduce the influence of American liberal
| values on the world. Destroying America is part of the plan.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Let's not go over the top.
|
| The announcement is about a tool developed internally by the
| French government to use internally, too. This is a very
| wasteful approach that does not create real competitors to US
| giants, and it is liable to be cancelled at the next round of
| cost reduction...
| softwaredoug wrote:
| It's not just this, it's the arrogant attitude of the
| administration on tarriffs, Ukraine, and a broad range of
| topics
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| And that will change in 3 years or even at the end of this
| year... A lot is blown out of proportion by the EU itself
| because it serves its own agenda to expand reach and power.
|
| Realistically there is zero alternative to US tech/online
| dominance in sight in Europe and the credible competitors
| are more likely to be Chinese (tiktok, temu, shein, etc.)
| What is happening is EU politics.
| thibaut_barrere wrote:
| An insider view: there is a major push in a lot of state
| related team & department at the moment to go "sovereign
| tooling". With alternatives for a lot of stuff.
|
| This is not just a corner of the universe, most of us are
| switching tools at the moment, the trend is definitively big.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| My point is that you don't achieve that by having the state
| start developing internal tools (unless it's highly
| sensitive stuff like for the intelligence services or
| military) for standard office applications. The French
| state is already massively oversized...
| xracy wrote:
| At this point I am praying that one of the things pushing back
| on this administration will be American Companies that have
| gotten rich on the back of "American Globalism", learning just
| how much it hurts when the US doesn't do its responsibility to
| remain Allies with it's nominal Allies.
|
| And the EU, Canada, and anyone else who the current US
| administration is slighting, should absolutely be moving cash
| hard and fast away from the American Economy, if they want
| change in US policy. TACO, is about economic policy, and it's
| hard to imagine this administration continuing it's more
| unpopular global (and even local policies), if it's discovering
| it's not actually backed by US Mega-Corps.
| fakedang wrote:
| The wheels for the great decoupling have been set though. The
| companies (which are also persons apparently thanks to the
| perversions of American law) have made their bed and will
| have to sleep in it themselves.
|
| Of course, there are huge unrealized opportunities to be had
| in economic powerhouses such as Belarus, Argentina, Russia,
| and whichever other member exists in the Board of Peace.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| There is no unringing this bell. Maybe a sane administration
| would slow the migration, but the damage is done. America is
| a capricious partner who can flip the table at any moment.
| shin_lao wrote:
| EU market is by no mean easy, it's heavily fragmented requiring
| very often intense localization effort.
| simfree wrote:
| What was the last successful French software project in the
| Telecom or Conferencing space?
|
| This project has been forced into the hands of 40k users, but
| likely due to a plethora of bugs and user experience issues
| they are picking a date far in the future for broad deployment.
|
| Belledonne Communications has been actively breaking Linphone,
| conference calling broke back in August 2023 for example and
| remains broken to this day.
|
| If we look to Quebecoise in Canada, SFLPhone would crash after
| 2 dozen calls, and Jami (formerly GNU Ring) is still a beta
| quality product with some neat DHT concepts that I'd love to
| see work.
|
| The French sphere has a software delivery and quality problem.
| The user rejection factor will remain high until they choose to
| fix the bugs that cause users to run away.
| Glawen wrote:
| Impossible n'est pas francais !
|
| And you seriously are saying Teams is the greatest thing
| since sliced bread? Ok I concede the videoconferencing works,
| but it's quite a feat to make a text chat window so slow and
| buggy. Sometimes when I type, it is spelling stuff backwards!
| Message texting is a solved problem since IRC or ICQ
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| Idk, VLC is kinda everywhere and while not the super cutting
| edge of video playing anymore, is still pretty OK. If they'd
| just attach a chat and SIP client to VLC they'd be set.
| orwin wrote:
| Ffmpeg.
|
| Basically all videoconferencing (except teams) is built on
| the back of French open source software.
| thayne wrote:
| _Some_ Americans. Others of us are very aware of this.
| foobarian wrote:
| Finally the year of Minitel on the desktop!
| _pdp_ wrote:
| Many EU members impose regulatory requirements for software in
| some sectors. If you want to get certified you need to go through
| some of them and while they are arcane they are also required.
|
| EU could easily force the hand - not in the next month or so but
| over a period of time. No need to discriminate against US
| companies but EU companies might be preferred and might have
| better access to EU services.
|
| We already have customers asking for this. They are not the
| majority but given the recent events this could quickly become a
| valuable chunk of the business - perhaps even overnight. We as a
| business are already thinking about it. And it is not just about
| moving the data to an EU data center. This is of course
| acceptable in many cases but still subject to the CLOUD Act. We
| are talking about a clean cut situation.
|
| It is true that good alternatives are not available, yet. But I
| would not underestimate EU tech companies either. There are
| plenty of great engineers and great companies in EU so strong
| competitors can spun up in short order. Now with AI coding
| assistants, it is even more doable then before.
|
| It is also potentially a great opportunity especially now.
| eb0la wrote:
| In Spain you need to be ENS-certified (esquema nacional de
| seguridad) in order to provide services to the goverment.
| Nowadays it is similar / aligned to NIS2 certification.
|
| But you need to certify more than _just_ apps. Processes are
| more important than apps.
| drnick1 wrote:
| It's baffling that the E.U. and others (corporations anywhere
| really) keep using and paying for Zoom when Jitsi and Nextcloud
| Talk are free and work very well. This is not a political issue,
| but one of data sovereignty.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| https://xcancel.com/lellouchenico/status/2015775970330882319
|
| Which itself links to:
|
| https://www.numerama.com/cyberguerre/2167301-la-france-veut-...
| lenerdenator wrote:
| If only they'd taken their reliance on Russian natural gas so
| seriously.
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| Indians are doing the same too.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| The French Gendarmerie has been running Linux for a while now
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu.
|
| I don't know the details but it seems like a good first step.
| gsky wrote:
| Every country should ban American social networks and messaging
| tools ASAP
| aerhardt wrote:
| I've been recently researching if I could replace American cloud
| providers with something like OVH or Hetzner (the latter I
| occasionally use for VPS) and there is no fucking chance. It's
| great that 37signals and DHH can do it, and I have no trouble
| believing they have saved money, but for situations in which I
| operate, both startup and enterprise environments but where devs
| are scarce and teams small, it's simply not realistic.
| earthnail wrote:
| I moved my stuff to Hetzner. Obv I have no idea about your
| situation, but I found it fairly trivial for my stuff.
|
| But I can't figure out how to replace GSuite.
| aerhardt wrote:
| Well for one thing, call me a sell-out or accuse me of
| lacking craftsmanship, but I like my databases managed. Then
| also storage buckets, IAM, general cloud security and other
| niceties.
|
| And I don't think it's for a lack of skills, I know my way
| around a Linux box - it's just that I save so much time. I'll
| occasionally build small projects in a VPS (sometimes
| cramming the db in there too!) but I don't feel I can do it
| for other more serious work projects.
|
| Hetzner has basic load-balancing and security around the VPS
| and that's it, OVH has a bit more but it all looks quite
| green.
| earthnail wrote:
| Oh, I wasn't trying to say you're wrong. Just wanted to
| share that for me, the bottleneck has been elsewhere, and
| that I personally found GSuite harder than the compute
| cloud.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This is the French government aiming to have all the government
| agencies use videoconferencing software that was developed
| internally by themselves.
|
| So a huge waste of taxpayers money...
|
| This is a pure ongoing cost to develop and maintain (more so than
| using an market product) while not getting any traction
| externally. The productive way to do this is to encourage private
| companies to develop these products and to support them with
| government contracts. There are not going to conpete with Silicon
| Valley if they don't create actual private competitors.
| Absolutely ridiculous approach but unfortunately typical of the
| industrial scale waste of the French government...
| veqq wrote:
| Jami is read for the big time!
| mistercheph wrote:
| Let's hope the alternatives they build are open source
| tonymet wrote:
| I've worked at a couple monster corporations who spent a lot of
| time and money to move off of Google and Amazon, because they
| were paranoid about espionage, only to return a couple years
| later at even greater expense.
|
| I doubt the French government will fare any better. They will end
| up spending hundreds of millions of Euros , maybe a couple
| billion, and have to return in a couple years. Especially with AI
| moats being built. AI is far too competitive. Every company will
| need to employ AI as a Goon ( see David Graber) to defend against
| all of the AI Goons going after them.
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| Countries are waking up to the danger of having the US in a
| position to take control of most of their computers and phones
| via software updates.
|
| Open source solutions like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu could become more
| prominent. There's even interesting non us hardware options like
| https://starlabs.systems/
|
| The US has had an unfair advantage in tech, defense, science and
| finance because it hosted the global hubs of the free world. This
| attracted eye-watering amounts of money to places like SF and NY.
| With the newfound isolationism, tariffs, threats etc. reducing
| the viability of hosting the global hubs, there's massive
| opportunities opening in europe and elsewhere, especially if
| governments can help bootstrap these sectors with efforts like
| these.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I live and work in Germany and know many people across Europe.
| Admittedly more in Western Europe, and admittedly my bubble leans
| toward traditional industries.
|
| I see a lot of talk about _" sovereignty"_ and _" European
| software"_. What I don't see is action.
|
| Does anyone working in Europe actually see signs that people are
| taking this seriously?
| 202508042147 wrote:
| Well, my company is! I just migrated this weekend our database
| from AWS RDS to a Hetzner VPS with Volumes. It's a small step,
| but it works for us and it is way cheaper!
| Einenlum wrote:
| Same. French here. I can't stand hearing these words anymore,
| when at the same time I read that the French intelligence
| services closed a 5-year deal with Palantir.
| jopsen wrote:
| > What I don't see is action.
|
| Building serious products and services in this space is easily
| 5 year investment, by that time there will be a new US
| administration.
|
| Hope is not a strategy, but it's certainly cheaper in the short
| run.
|
| ----
|
| But have you divested from US assets?
|
| Maybe one should, considering we just deployed armed troops
| with live ammunition to scare of America.
|
| I fear we don't know how close this was. Maybe, we'll know in
| 50 years.
| astrolx wrote:
| I work at a French research institute and our Zoom contract ends
| soon so we get to switch to Visio. It's not too bad but quite
| tier below Zoom. Noise cancellation is not great, being browser
| based also comes with limitations, in half my meetings people
| don't manage to find the permissions to allow mic and/or webcam
| ...
| learingsci wrote:
| This would be a great thing for humanity as a whole, but not for
| France. So I doubt it will happen. Hope strings eternal.
| sharyphil wrote:
| "You know what they call Zoom in Paris?"
|
| "What do they call it?"
|
| "Le Zoom"
| 202508042147 wrote:
| This is great and definitely doable. It's the initial bit that's
| hard, people hate switching but then when they get used to it,
| they won't switch back.
|
| What I'd really like to see is a pan-european payment processor,
| a European alternative to Visa/Mastercard.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I would love to switch away from Teams. Sadly the organizations
| I belong to do not want to pay for anything else.
| avh02 wrote:
| was talking to a friend about this, there's wero but i haven't
| really seen it around (Germany).
| severino wrote:
| The problem I've seen with this is that Wero works with
| banking applications that require either Google Play or App
| Store. Which means that you may not need an American company
| for the payment itself, but you now need an American company
| in the device you have to use for the payment.
| Fanofilm wrote:
| If they did it by growing open source competitors, it would be
| brilliant. Linux-equivalents for all major categories.
| xracy wrote:
| It's wild to me that the first Trump Administration didn't teach
| this lesson. The "Just Trust me Bro" Foreign policy that has
| existed clearly only works if the person in power is trustworthy,
| and you have to carefully investigate any policy that is enforced
| by "trust". One of the most disappointing failures of the Biden
| Administration was that they didn't realize this.
|
| The greatest failure of every other country was to get lulled
| into a false sense of security when the US Gov't shifted back to
| an at-all trustworthy foreign policy.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Semi-related thought bubble:
|
| I wonder what would happen if EU countries started encouraging ad
| blocking via their ISP DNS servers?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Isn't that what "LaSuite" is? I know this particular instance is
| for the French government; but isn't it open source?
|
| https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr
| rawgabbit wrote:
| I found the answer in the FAQ. Anyone can deploy it in their
| own instance.
|
| https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/#:~:text=LaSuite%20etant%2...
| jl6 wrote:
| The software part of this would be easy. People will literally
| write it for free, out of the sheer joy of building Free & open
| source software. The part the state needs to do is bootstrap a
| network effect that leads to people actually using it.
|
| I guess they'll need to employ a _few_ engineers to add enough
| lines of code to rocket.chat to make it competitive with Teams
| levels of slowness.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Fixing network effect is easy for hegemonies, just ban the
| competition. You can use national security or save the children
| pretext in democratic countries.
|
| US took over TikTok forcefully, Europeans are looking into
| forcing their contenders into domination but if it doesn't look
| like working they can just use the US tactics.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Non-french might not realize that we have a huge free software
| community of france, made up in large part of communist state-
| funded scientists / researchers. They do a lot of cool stuff, you
| can see a few projects for example on Framasoft who has the
| explicit goal of un-Googling yourself : https://framasoft.org/en/
| https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/
|
| That said, having technical solutions isn't enough to replace USA
| / private solutions. The answer has to take into account the
| economical, social and political situation
| tsoukase wrote:
| "Nobody Ever Got Fired For Buying Microsoft". Same for Oracle and
| AWS, until a year ago. Before the current insanity, Europe whould
| become independent like never. Now, it will take about a decade,
| IF the insanity continues in the next presidential terms.
| mkcg wrote:
| @see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766004
| esperent wrote:
| For those who don't want to use Twitter:
|
| https://xcancel.com/lellouchenico/status/2015775970330882319
|
| Or here's the linked article:
|
| https://www.numerama.com/cyberguerre/2167301-la-france-veut-...
|
| And here's the app, Visio:
|
| https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/produits/visio
| vinni2 wrote:
| Silicon Valley type of companies grew to be giants by exploiting
| personal data of users without any regard for privacy and lax
| regulations. European companies can't match them because of the
| regulations and privacy laws. It's not the lack of talent or
| investment that is holding EU back.
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