Comment by esperent

What points could we even discuss? It's all terribly vague and I imagine nobody here can even tell how that supposed 'strategy' is different from the one 5 years ago. And half of the things mentioned there, like the EUDI Wallet or age verification have been heavily criticised for good reasons.

If the headline was "EU invests 100B into open source to further independence from US", I imagine things would be different. But right now it's "we have intentions to have plans about tech and open source in the EU sometime in the future".

A huge chunk of HN is 20-something kids who are way too online and parrot in earnest Polandball-style memes like "Germany doesn't have freedom of speech" or "France has too much regulation". They are fine to discuss tech with but I wouldn't take their opinions on politics or culture seriously

> Of course there's a lot to criticize and also to appreciate about the EU. But this is supposed to be a forum for intelligent, thoughtful discussion and yet as soon as the EU gets mentioned it basically turns into reddit.

You dislike criticism? I find criticism an important part of discourse and discussion. HN is very clearly not anything like reddit - just the insane amount of censorship on reddit alone, is already one argument against that claim. Many more could be given. I have been using reddit in the past for many years, so I know how reddit changed. Not that everything is perfect on hackernews; I dislike the "you are posting too much" limitation, for instance. But we don't have over-eager censor-mods here whereas that was locking down numerous interesting discussions on reddit.

With regards to the EU situation: the EU is in a very strange situation. On the one hand it is doing good things; this then gets cancelled by the EU commission acting as a pure lobbyist group, as well as a huge army of bureaucrats who want more and more money and dream about assimilating more and more countries, which makes zero sense. Whether the EU will succeed with regards to their open source strategy or not, who knows. What I do know is that individual countries, such as France or the Netherlands, are quite intelligent when it comes to good decisions (Germany is absolutely undermined by lobbyists, so it is totally paralysed here); I am not convinced the EU is in a similar situation. It would have to be reformed, but people in Brussels don't want to see their job axxed away, so nothing will improve here.

My recommendation is that if you are unhappy, go and talk about it - but don't expect others to turn to your assumptions about how a discussion should happen when it comes to the EU, because they may not share your opinion here.

Honestly, as a European, I am okay with this.

I want the US tech community to continue thinking of us as some sort of technological backwater. Ridiculing and deriding us, so they never see as any place where they are welcome. Since given the last ten years, they pretty much aren't. There's basically little to nothing that US tech services have to offer Europe.

True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it in the last decade regarding most things digital.

Most EU initiatives have damaged everyday UX on the web and in tech. Yes, some malicious compliance has played a role by over-reacting to well-intended regulations. But overall the EU has brought this upon itself.

This specific Open Source Strategy memo is typical. It's in fact not a strategy but a list of key goals and requirements, put together in technocratic jargon. It will have zero effect on the actual open source ecosystem.

It's not only HN. You can see big tech media hate against any effort europe does. Everybody is mocking europe for building 10 years old chip fabs or their measly small unusable clouds or bad startup scene.

It's interesting because not that long ago nobody cared about what europe did in tech. Or more like everybody was fine with the fact that europe imported computers and exported something else. It was like that forever. I am not sure where this is coming from. It almost seems like even these weak efforts might mess up with somebodys business.

Mastodon works fairly well for that I think.

HN is full of people which EU is fighting against, so of course is there little chance to find sane discussions here. You could try some european subreddits, or local tech-sites from Europe, there is usually a better chance to find people who benefit from EU-regulations and have a more rational view on them.

If you create one, I would join

Free to copy this code base https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters

Even on HN we're still human, and have the same human weaknesses and failure modes.

I guess the hate is because the EU also invented the following monstrosities:

- CRA (cyber resiliency act): Manufacturers must handle and release security patches for vulnerabilities, and developers are required to report actively on exploited vulnerabilities and breaches.

- PLD (Product Liability Directive): A failure to provide critical security updates or the presence of exploitable vulnerabilities can now legally constitute a "defect" and if defective software causes physical harm or property damage, manufacturers are strictly liable and cannot contractually exclude or limit this liability.

And the kicker is this: Non-commercial open-source software is generally exempt from these commercial liability frameworks. However, if an open-source component is integrated into a commercial, for-profit product, the responsibility shifts to the corporate manufacturer.

So good luck making some money of your open source project where the risk outweighs any potential profit, or integrate an open source project into your commercial offering.

That's because American BigTech Bros are afraid of the below and will take every opportunity to diss on it.

"Support uptake of open source alternatives to proprietary solutions together with Member States and the Digital Commons EDIC — cloud, workplace tools, secure e-mail, decentralised social media."

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With the European Chips Act I already a total disaster, please help me with your intelligence, thoughtful discussion to explain the feasibility of miracles to me in rational terms, since the EU is obviously oblivious to the fact, that they are delusional and hubris might be a better term to explain, what "the EU" wants to achieve - and maintain.

BTW, the EU also plans for a energy transformation, being a military powerhouse, surveillance state - what else could be wish into reality?

So instead of adressing the article and provide the potential base for a intelligent debate, you decided to raise the bar by lamenting?

My impression in general is that there is rather a very EU friendly view here on HN in general, but HN is critical of everything.

So I also say, lot's of nice words, great that they at least start so late with that now, but more concrete steps would be more welcome.

"Making public administrations anchor users and contributors to open source, through procurement guidance, open-source friendly tendering, strengthening the Open Source Programme Office and its networks, reusable public digital assets and by embedding openness and sovereignty in digital investment decisions"

Because this for example sounds great. But is it very concrete? It sounds like it, but I don't see how it is.