Comment by tomaytotomato
9 days ago
Maybe the EU can develop its own version of Linux OS, just like North Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
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When legislators start getting involved they will want to inevitably have their "own" version of something and their own SLAs and contracts.
The reason they went with Microsoft/IBM/Oracle and others back in the day for software solutions is; they know on a piece of paper what they are getting, and who they can blame if they don't get it.
With Opensource OS and software, even with auditing and stuff, there is no way to blame anyone apart from end-users. For politicians and bureacracts, that is a scary thing, as they will be the ones to blame (read: asses on the line)
The consultation is great and all but
As someone who has watched on the sidelines how Opensource governance turns projects into hydra monsters (Redhat, Jakarta EE). I wouldn't be surprised in a few years we will have a EU approved OS that is controlled by bureaucracts.
But who knows, maybe they will just become end users of a popular distro and other opensource software.
Finland (where Linux comes from) is in the EU. There are also a few European linux distributions you may have heard of: e.g. Debian, SUSE, Ubuntu (UK), Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia, Knoppix, etc.
How is Linux related to Finland? Just because some of early contributors was born in Finland?
You mean the actual founder of Linux is from Finland, not just a contributor.
Also you're forgetting all the "US" companies with headquarters in Luxembourg or Ireland.
It was literally created by Torvalds (a Finn) while at the university of Helsinki (in Finland).
8 replies →
> Ubuntu (UK)
This is an EU initiative, Ubuntu probably isn't included.
What for? Plenty of maintainers for various distros are from Europe and/or the EU.
For example: https://map.debian.net/
What is this map? Almost every city in DK and Sweden shows "Kåre Olsen"
Is all the distributions where most core developers already live in Europe/EU not enough for you? Take a look at where most of the active contributors live for some distributions, and I think you'd be surprised :)
With my original flippant comment I was trying to highlight that despite the many Opensource projects and the many awesome people who contribute to them, they should stay at arms length from EU and its legislators.
When legislators start getting involved they will want to inevitably have their "own" version of something and their own SLAs and contracts.
The reason they went with Microsoft/IBM/Oracle and others back in the day for software solutions is; they know on a piece of paper what they are getting, and who they can blame if they don't get it.
With Opensource OS and software, even with auditing and stuff, there is no way to blame anyone apart from end-users. For politicians and bureacracts, that is a scary thing, as they will be the ones to blame (read: asses on the line)
The consultation is great and all but I am skeptical, so I wouldn't be surprised in a few years we will have a EU approved OS that is controlled by bureaucracts.
Hence my comparison to North Korea's Linux distro
> despite the many Opensource projects and the many awesome people who contribute to them, they should stay at arms length from EU and its legislators.
But despite that, they exist today, successfully so, and continue being funded by the very people you claim they should stay away from.
I'm not sure if you looked into how this whole "funding FOSS" thing works like, but governments are not opening a fund, letting any FOSS developer expense stuff to it and calling it a day. Usually they contract a company to work on things, that then end up FOSS.
Even if the end result is FOSS or not, they have the same people they can blame if they want to, the people they paid for certain results. The license of the finished thing doesn't change who's responsible for doing the job they've been paid to do.
I think until you actually understanding how the funding works, it would be fair to avoid doing flippant comments who basically only try to add some fuel to some fire, with some completely out of place comparison to a NK Linux distribution.
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I don't get it - do you think the US government doesn't have homegrown linux distros?