this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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414
Euro techies call for sovereign fund to escape US dependency (www.theregister.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

European companies like Airbus, Dassault, and OVHcloud apparently want Europe to reduce its dependence on US tech companies.

Thoughts?

top 23 comments
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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I would love for such a fund to invest very liberally in these companies, on the condition that anything it funds must be free and open source - public money, public code! The only way to take down these giant US companies is to work together, and the most effective way to work together is to release everything in the open in such a way that anyone can build on top of it.

If the money just gets funneled into these companies so they can build their own lock-in, the EU would be recreating the same dependency on a few small companies that happened in the US. It wouldn't increase productivity in the long run, it would instead substitute dependency on a few US companies for a few EU companies.

But, if they invest in open source software, it could spur innovation not only in the companies that are directly funded, but also thousands of other companies throughout the EU that would now have common infrastructure that they can build on top of.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

I've been thinking for awhile now how cool it would be for a country like the U.S to have a public sovereign wealth fund. There are certain industries where the typical free-market enterprise just doesn't work (such as essential healthcare, infrastructure, food, maybe housing, etc.) Perhaps there could be some kind of public option business that competes in the market with fair prices and an idealized model of doing business.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

I would love for such a fund to invest very liberally in these companies, on the condition that anything it funds must be free and open source

That's not how the game is played. You absorb the public losses. But they privatize the gains. Otherwise, there's no deal.

If the money just gets funneled into these companies so they can build their own lock-in, the EU would be recreating the same dependency on a few small companies that happened in the US.

That's the goal, yes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

A big part of the EU cloud movement is "Public money, public code". Most of these companies are open source advocates.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

I wholeheartedly agree with this. But what actually makes this work is taxes.

If a government provides funds to grow a business, and that business makes more money, the government benefits from both corporate taxes and keeping that money in their country, thus going to individuals who also pay taxes, and spend money on material goods which means more taxes.

The challenge with FOSS and moneymaking, is it only works if there's a profit center to come back via taxes. Sure, it's public money, but government is also a business. And since OSI still doesnt have a tier to support license like SSPLv1, source available is the best companies can do in that kind of situation (think MongoDB and Redis, for instance).

So, to me, an admittedly N of 1:

  • Provide public funds on requirement of an SSPLv1 style license
  • If there is no business model for SSPLv1 (non-reseller), require FOSS release after a period of 5 years of exclusive use of code built with public funds
[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Please let this finally be the year of the Linux desktop.

[–] lemmeBe 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

For me it finally is. 😎

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I've been mainly on Linux for a few years now and honestly once you have your alternative apps going it's golden.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Giggity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

A lot of big-name software devs would need to offer official Linux support next to official Windows and MacOS support. Yes, some do, but that's still the minority.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Multipolarism is good for everyone. Even if you hate the EU, it is a good thing for no single country to dominate everything from culture to technology.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We're going to entering the find out stage of the USA's fucking around pretty damn soon.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I hate that I live here and have to face consequences for something I was vehemently and vocally against.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

US techies also call for that. Y'know. Just. For completeness' sake.

[–] fruitycoder 8 points 1 day ago

Learn from the best of the US example and leapfrog from using opensource and the best of the Chinese example using open hardware.

There are so many places where good FOSS and FOSH investments can act as public infrastructure for an entire economy. After that just fostering good education so that more people can leverage and improve on it and we might really see a Renaissance

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

Open source and copyleft please.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

These 100 companies are leaders in the IT space. High time to pool our resources and finally build ourselves a sovereign IT system.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Wise, but long overdue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Sounds good to me. The plutocrats in my country need to be taken down a few notches, and I'm already looking for ways to spend as little as I can in US companies (except local small businesses).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

This thing must have been done years ago, not after the reelection of Trump. Now, these big techs will try everything to weaken or destroy the EU.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Careful, they brought slavery to Syria for less.

[–] Brumefey 1 points 1 day ago

After having finally migrated everything to azure and AWS, will we have to go back on premise ? 🫢

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Like AWS? So long Bezos.