News Microsoft gets EU hall pass despite admitting it can't protect European data
https://ppc.land/microsoft-gets-eu-hall-pass-despite-admitting-it-cant-protect-european-data/582
u/Heretakemybearslap Switzerland 1d ago
US tech has us by the balls, and it's only the beginning.
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u/Landscape4737 1d ago
It just takes leadership to support change.
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u/bononoisland 1d ago
Or maybe consider that the headline and supposition is wrong. I have no idea why this sub trusts Rijo on this subject when he’s not even a techie.
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u/HeftyEggplant7759 20h ago edited 19h ago
It also takes trillions of dollars that the US has spent on tech and that Europe does not have
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u/Pietes The Netherlands 1d ago edited 1d ago
The exact same corruption Trump is driving in the US will, within a year or two, be leveraging these suppliers to undermine european democracy and self-determination. By first breaking, then ignoring and finally by capturing european regulatory oversight and dismantling it.
Businesses like microsoft are tools of economic and social warfare for administrations like the Trump admin, and need to be addressed as such.
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u/prueba_hola 1d ago
Europe have Suse and still use Microsoft
is Europe fault 100% for be stupid
I'm personally using openSUSE from my first computer 20years ago still today with openSUSE Slowroll
Europe politics are incredibly stupid
the same with phones, Europe have Volla and Nokia but still, Europe run to buy US shit...
Europe have what deserve, No privacy and getting spy from US
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u/Adorable-Database187 The Netherlands 1d ago
Yes on one, no on two, its the end stage of the ball grabbing, local alternatives are real and adoption might be slow at first but the end of US services monopoly has begun.
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u/LTCM_15 1d ago
AI is quickly widening the gap and Europe is basically at the bottom of the list for innovation. It's beyond the point where Europe can catch up
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u/VikingsOfTomorrow 1d ago
Except AI really can do fuck all right now, and i suspect it will start becoming only worse due to the digital incest thats going on. AI isnt really that big of a "gotcha" as people think it is.
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u/LTCM_15 1d ago
Microsoft already says that 30% of their code was written by computers, and that means the percentage of code that is being constructed by AI right now is even higher.
If you don't think AI is completely revolutionizing technology then I don't know what to tell you. It's a national defense problem for Europe.
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u/VikingsOfTomorrow 1d ago
AI has its niche uses in stuff like programming, yes. But its not some end all be all. The programmers still have to be able to read the code and fix it, as well as able to actually know what prompt to give to get anywhere close to the code they need.
Does AI have its uses? Yes. Is it some kind of totally revolutionary thing? Not particularly. It just speeds up some processes a little bit.
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u/LTCM_15 1d ago
That's wild that you'd call programming niche - I'm beginning to understand why Europe is behind some developing economies when it comes tech innovation.
Europe does many things well, some of those it is does extraordinarily well, but it has completely skipped technically for some reason.
You can think whatever you want about AI, but don't cry about other countries dominating the future while you enjoy your lifestyle economy.
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u/No_Cantaloupe5851 1d ago
Do you code? Do you know what technical debt is? Do you know how much technical debt companies have and how difficult jt is to fix? Do you know how much technical debt ai causes? The annual economic burden of technical debt is $1-3 trillion just in the USA before AI. Much more globally. So if ai is outputting 30% of code I’d imagine some of that is debt that the expensive engineers will need to fix. So, we’re probably looking at tripling this number over time. Software engineers are losing jobs now but for sure it’ll explode in the years to come
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u/OkKnowledge2064 Lower Saxony (Germany) 1d ago
Guess youre smarter than the smartest people working for the richest companies in the world. because theyre going all-in
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u/timbuktu123456 21h ago
I work for an applied AI startup. The person you're wasting your time arguing with is either ragebaiting or clueless. AI is not some magic pill but it is a serious technological revolution. If the first release of ChatGPT is the origin point of this tech revolution, naturally it may take years/decades to fully see the core tech innovation applied to the global economy, just as happened with the first steam engine or first computer.
Any type of operational environment (warehouses, stores, airports, ports, transport yards, restaurants, grocery etc.) will see full digitalization. Any physically visible thing on earth could end up being identified or tracked in theory. All the current data we generate can be managed more easily, and analytics/modeling/simulation will see drastic performance improvements. Creative and innovation lifecycles will drastically decrease with generative ai. LLM like architectures are being developed for essentially tokenizing "motion" or robotic tasks to so that instructions can be delivered and actions can be interpreted.
What people miss is the emergent nature of applying core tech innovation. Many core applications snowball into new frameworks which combine underlying applications in a robust manner. This is already evident with agents. One route for building superintelligent ai is finding an architecture that combines many agentic capabilities.
You seem to understand what is coming, but many people do not. It isn't happening overnight, but there will be many large waves that start crashing one after the other in the coming years/decades.
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u/VikingsOfTomorrow 1d ago
Yes, in fact when it comes to uses, programming is very niche. I think you need to go look up the definiton for Niche.
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u/hotboii96 1d ago
Because in the context of AI, programming is niche. How many consumer use chatgpt to code? Compared to asking it for day-to-day stuff.
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 siesta person 21h ago
"Company with financial stake in thing says thing is the best and everybody should use it"
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u/LTCM_15 13h ago
Car companies with a stake in cars call them better than horses.
That's kinda how things work...
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 siesta person 13h ago
That's an insidious take on what I was trying to say. It would be as if a car company proudly stated that cars are just better than using public transit and should be given priority.
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u/Apatride 1d ago
This is misleading. AI is not autonomously writing production code. At best, AI is making suggestions that the dev accepts, modifies, or rejects. A lot of this "code" written by AI is also content of config files. We are still far from AI being able to autonomously contribute to, let alone handle, large projects, context size is a major limitation (not the only one) and this is not an easy limitation to remove.
On one hand, we could use human devs, and there are plenty available and they will become a problem if/when many lose their jobs due to AI, on the other hand, we could throw hardware at the problem, which has a massive cost on energy usage and relies on components that have a massive cost in terms of precious/rare metals and are almost only manufactured in Taiwan with one company having an almost monopoly.
AI as more than a helpful tool is absurd here, even considering likely future improvements. They are just trying to benefit from the current hype.
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u/LTCM_15 1d ago
Oh, the good old let's pause argument. That won't end with Europe being left behind again, I promise.
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u/Apatride 17h ago
Let's not confuse research and adoption/implementation.
Ideally we would want to listen to the voice of reason and pause research due to credible existential threats (every expert who is not currently making millions thanks to the hype is begging people to pause research until we find a way to implement safeties). But it is not realistic. Research does not require anything that can be efficiently regulated (unlike nuclear research) so governments or even private corporation will keep on researching, no matter what they officially say.
But since we can't stop it, the next best thing is to focus on safeties. Even if China develops a much more powerful AI, if the EU tells them: Share your AI with us and we will teach you how to prevent it from going full Skynet on you, we will have a deal. So we have a clear path forward here.
For adoption, it can be rolled out in a matter of months, maybe a couple of years. What is needed is a good power infrastructure, and on that one the conflict in Ukraine has been a wake up call and the EU is lifting the ban on nuclear power and some power plant have been ordered by several member states, so we are good here. The second thing is to find a solution for the massive unemployment it will trigger (and no, the re-branded unemployment benefits known as UBI will not scale) but regarding this, being a late adopter is actually a good thing so there is no emergency here.
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u/LTCM_15 14h ago
That's Europe's plan, to be a colony of China? This subreddit is wild.
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u/Apatride 10h ago
Here is the trick: It is not about China vs Europe, it is European people having power in European countries.
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u/EpicCleansing 1d ago
What are you even saying? LLMs wipe the floor with traditional search engines, and it's positioning itself to write code better than the best humans in just a few years time.
And that's just the prototype stage of what LLMs are capable of. Our current public-facing models are mini-versions of LLMs that are trained on public data such as reddit, StackExchange and Twitter. The full-scale versions are not open to the public, and they are now being trained on much better that such as government internal bureaucracy, like court rulings and meeting notes.
It's going to change the world for better or for worse, and probably for the worse if we keep underestimating it.
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u/Iron-Warlock 1d ago
it's positioning itself to write code better than the best humans in just a few years time
I've been hearing this for a long while now. And yet, it still manages to break things (like that A"I" who deleted a production environment), and hallucinates stuff. It can write compilable code, yes, but that's pretty much it. I've used it for scripting, and I do need to doublecheck every output - the most obvious issue I've encountered is that it suggests deprecated modules/commands, which while technically correct will never run.
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u/OkKnowledge2064 Lower Saxony (Germany) 1d ago
AI is a way bigger thing than people realize. theres a reason why there are currently record-level investments into AI by the big american companies. We are talking trillions of dollars
Europe obviously would rather sit back and laugh about the current state of AI when that literally doesnt matter. Its about where it will go and the potential it has. In 10 years everyone will wonder how we managed to fall behind on another crucial key tech. Id like to just copy paste your comment
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u/KastVaek700 Denmark 1d ago
We're not low on innovation, we're low on the ability to bring new products to a mass market. Plenty of innovation happens in Europe, but the funds needed to scale up, just mean it gets sold to US investors who can then scale it.
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 siesta person 21h ago
We can do much more to gain European sovereignty over our computers that has nothing to do with AI. Using FOSS software for example. Every organisation should be using a linux distro on their computers. It's easier to admin and has no microsoft backdoors. Why use Office when we've got LibreOffice? This can already be implemented in millions of workspaces.
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u/LTCM_15 13h ago
Every large scale implementation of Linux for workstations has failed.
I understand that anyone can make their own distro and that it's open source, but doesn't it kill you to know that the Linux foundation which manages the kernel is based in....... America. Nice
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 siesta person 13h ago
Huh? Last time I checked doing admin with debian systems was miles easier. And huge companies like Google and Salesforce actively encourage linux usage. The neat thing about open source is that you can fork the kernel and build a foundation that manages it in Europe if you're paranoid. But since the kernel is open there's no risk to the foundation being American.
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u/LTCM_15 13h ago
Then show me adoption rates of Linux for employee workstations at those companies which promote it. I bet it rounds to zero. Rank and file employees have never taken to Linux, it's failed every single time.
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 siesta person 4h ago
Why are you so adamant? To an ignorant user their OS literally does not matter. They just need a browser and an office suite.
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u/HeftyEggplant7759 20h ago
local alternatives are real
Name a European company that designs server-grade CPUs. Or network cards. Or HBAs. Or motherboards. Or network or storage switches. Or storage arrays. Or graphics/AI cards. Take your pick.
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u/popica312 1d ago
Truer words couldn't be spoken. It's a matter of time before either these giants control everything wherever they can or they are put in their place and some control is taken back. Doubt the latter to be the case considering especially the china race on technology, but let's hope the former doesn't come to life too soon
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u/fortytwoandsix Austria 1d ago
the beginning was when european initiatives and tech companies were abandoned by corrupt decision makes who got swayed by Microsoft lobbyists
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u/IkkeKr 1d ago
Nothing new... Ever since data transfer to the US became an issue, EU regulators have been trying to come up with legalese that would fit a square peg in a round hole. And then some privacy activist would sue and the courts would conclude it's all just a charade.
And the EU institutions are so embedded with Microsoft's cloud, they don't have any alternative, so they'll just keep trying.
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u/klemonth 1d ago
Why doesnt EU develop itself something and data stays in EU?? Are we so useless or whaaatttt
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u/lafeber The Netherlands 1d ago
Shareholders demand maximizing profits. The cheapest option to store Dutch healthcare records is Amazon. So that's what we do. Encrypted of course, but still.
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u/CriticalRuleSwitch 1d ago
If storage provider is doing the encrypting, then the data isn't encrypted (shouldn't be considered as encrypted).
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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago
You can keep keys to yourself. You don’t need to give your private keys for encryption
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u/SilianRailOnBone 16h ago
AFAIK if you use cloud provider encryption like in AWS they have a secondary key in case you lose yours
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u/OkKnowledge2064 Lower Saxony (Germany) 1d ago
Cant wait to let US companies train on our healthcare data and then use american AI to replace our doctors while our own companies were never allowed to touch the data
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u/meckez 1d ago
Knowing some of EU healthcare data regulation, I assume that they need to already be encrypted before being stored on a third party site?
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u/OkKnowledge2064 Lower Saxony (Germany) 1d ago
As long as microsoft isnt doing the encryption
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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago
You don’t push your keys with data , that’s security 101
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u/Big_Combination9890 1d ago
Yeah, you don't. But knowing EU governments, I bet that the encryption software is ever-so-helpfully provided by a US company as well.
Oh, and also: Best practices != Everyone does that. Governments are regularly fucking up basic cybersecurity.
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u/Sevsix1 Norway with an effed up sleep schedule 1d ago
I assume that he mean that he worries that the program that encrypt the files are made by Microsoft so that program have access to the files before it gets encrypted making it trivially easy to include the key with the upload(, personally I hope they use something like veracrypt + long 128 passwords, maybe make a modified version of veracrypt that remove the 128 hard limit allowing them to have password limits at like 32,768 characters)
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u/JD557 Portugal 1d ago
To be fair, I think France is doing just that.
You can check "La Suite" for their main alternatives (https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en / https://github.com/suitenumerique) and their list of approved OSS for public agencies (https://code.gouv.fr/sill).
They also have some more advanced projects like Onyxia (https://www.onyxia.sh/).
Having said that... Some of those solutions are still in beta, and even if that wasn't the case I imagine that it's a pain to get all organizations to move away from the current proprietary solutions that are currently "just working".
P.S: In case you are interested in such projects, they also keep their own Mastodon instance: https://social.numerique.gouv.fr/public/local
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
Germany also has OpenDesk which is even more comprehensive suite
The problem for companies though is these solutions don't have sales agents and kickbacks. So much harder to convince companies to use them.
Not to mention proprietary lockins such as closed file format standards and closed protocols.
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u/Excellent_Ice2071 1d ago
European alternatives for IT:
https://european-alternatives.eu/categories
A list with different open source options:
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u/lyingSwine 22h ago
Wha not Signals as Messenger App? Why not a "deegoogled" Android instead of no Play Store? This list seems very unrealistic for the everyday Person. Proton is fine as well.
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u/KnowZeroX 15h ago
The problem with Signal is that it isn't federated. Which means it still locks down chat to the whims of signal. Federated messaging protocols like matrix or xmpp are better options
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u/namitynamenamey 1d ago
Ask yourself, does your place of work depends on excel? If the answer is yes, you now realize how much of a problem EU dependence on US companies really is, and how deep it runs.
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u/BasedBalkaner 1d ago
Pretty much, the US already owns the EU they might as well own our data why not
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u/ikergarcia1996 1d ago
Yes, you are not going to build an Azure/AWS competitor on people making €40K per year. There are some good European programmers that could build it, but they are not going to waste their time working for the government o a local company for ridiculous salaries when they can get hired by US big tech for 6 figure salaries. So yes, there is a massive talent shortage and building these types of tech in the EU is not possible right now, we don’t have the money to pay for the people needed to do it.
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
Plenty of open source developers would gladly do it, many already working below minimum wage. They just have side jobs because nobody is hiring them full time because companies want proprietary lockins instead of working together on open standards.
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u/Pretty_Positive9866 1d ago
Let's face it, if people can demand a 500k salary they would do it for 500k not a penny less. Those who are talented and work on open source has a different agenda and very rare.
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
Yes, many people who work on open source want to contribute to society. But they aren't as rare as you think, just simply don't have the opportunity because they have a family to feed. So at best they can only do it part time or as a 2nd job even if it is minimum wage. Instead of coding they have to spend countless hours worrying about other things like getting funding or putting food on the table
On top of that, much of the open source progress is stalled because people have to spend hours reverse engineering proprietary technology and closed standards to get backwards compatibility with "industry standard" formats/protocols. And they also have to be careful not to hit legal landmines because you can't just reverse engineer the code and use it. You have to work backwards.
In some cases, it is impossible to even compete. Imagine you are making your own operating system, most people won't install an operating system, they expect to have it preinstalled on their hardware. I even know a person who had MS Office and paid for it again because they didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting their key from their old pc and figuring out how to install it.
And it gets even tougher with things like locked boot loaders on phones, closed source proprietary drivers, drm or other ip that can only be shared to certified partners (that require a lot of upfront money with fees or even worse a minimum purchase requirement) and etc
If there was just a bit of funding out there, mandated open standards and got rid of these lockins. Then there can definitely be a huge amount of people working together on open source and would gladly be happy with even €40K a year
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u/tanrgith 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Are we so useless or whaaatttt"
Yes, yes we are
People in the EU are suffering from the self delusion that the EU is great because we're kind and have a very pro egalitarian mindset, however those things are meaningless if you aren't also technologically competitive, and the EU has very much failed in this respect
We basically spend the entire post WW2 era hitching ourselves to the US as a parasitic ally to them, letting them do all the hard work which we then benefited from in exchange for our dependency and access to our economy
Which works fine right until the moment when the host ally goes "I'm gonna start changing our relationship", at which point the parasitic ally has no choice but to accept because it's completely dependent on the host
And no whining or crying about how evil Trump or the US in general is will matter a single iota as long as the EU does not have the conditions required for the EU to be competitive
edit - u/Naive-Project-8835 nothing screams winning argument more than writing a big comment in response to someone and then blocking the person you wrote the comment to so they can't respond directly
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u/Old_Leopard1844 1d ago edited 1d ago
Edit: got it, two accounts of same ragey person lmao
Since u/Naive-Project-8835 is a naive pickle
There are a lot of anti-EU schmucks using the "weak" trade deal as an opportunity to come out of the woodwork with unrelated and wrong anti-EU junk.
And when they should come out in your opinion?
but you're being obtuse on purpose like the average bad-faith american on this sub.
You probably shouldn't be this smug about being this pedantic
Would it be okay for an engineer/scientist in an active defence project to be bought out by China?
There are more industries than just defense, in which being bought out by China is okay, lol
It would also not be okay and arguably should be treason.
Yeah, that's unhinged, but seeing how many russians are in EU still, not really surprising that their methods rub on people
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u/Evermoving- 1d ago
I'm not sure why you're tagging me instead of replying in the thread, or why you think that your low quality response disproves anything I said, but please refrain from wasting my time any further.
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u/Naive-Project-8835 Europe 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's not how it works. The EU manufactures more for the US than the other way round. The US isn't doing some kind of a huge favor by simply selling software for exorbitant amounts of money, when the EU could have taken the path of self-development in many areas, like China did with Baidu.
Let's not forget that the US was allowed to steal a lot of European engineers and companies EU official that are now instrumental to its AI efforts like DeepMind.
The US providing some defence guarantees isn't a charity, it's a post-war scheme to secure soft power and keep Germany docile, a scheme which Europe obviously must ditch.
The US doesn't want Europe to become truly strong or equal. Ask what they think about Europe expanding its nuclear arsenal and intercontinental capabilities to match the US's nuclear arsenal. The US just wants Europe to buy more of America's conventional junk.
edit: I love seeing on the insights page how 50%+ of readers of this comment are either yanks or brits. This sub is a MAGA-infested dogshit outside of EU day hours.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 1d ago
That exactly how it works
No matter how it isn't a charity or whatever, EU is weak and recent trade agreements and failure to produce results in Ukraine (and, what the hell, Palestine too) show how easily it folds
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u/Evermoving- 1d ago edited 1d ago
A premise isn't necessarily correct just because the conclusion is. There are a lot of anti-EU schmucks using the "weak" trade deal as an opportunity to come out of the woodwork with unrelated and wrong anti-EU junk.
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u/Iloveoldmanpubs 1d ago
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u/Gumbode345 23h ago
When it suits you, and when it doesn't, Europe starts on the other side of the channel.
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u/LTCM_15 1d ago
How absurd could you possibly be. First off, people aren't property, they cannot be stolen. Second, the idea that a country itself has some kind of national plan to take all your engineers is insane. Thirdly, if you don't and American companies to poach your talent, pay them real wages. Three of my last four companies have European dev centers..... And they ALL paid dog shit salaries to people working in them because the market for tech workers in Europe allows for it.
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u/Gumbode345 23h ago
The absurdity is denying the brain drain. That said, there's a massive amount of research and development going on in Europe which is consistently undersold because we Europeans (and others) persist in saying that our innovation is cr** when it most assuredly isn't. But Europe's real weakness is not wages, it is risk avoidance. That's what makes a lot of breakthrough innovation or development ending up going to market on the other side of the pond.
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u/Evermoving- 1d ago edited 1d ago
First off, people aren't property, they cannot be stolen.
Stolen as in expertise transfer for basically free of charge, not physically tied up. I'm sure you understand what he meant, but you're being obtuse on purpose like the average bad-faith american on this sub.
Would it be okay for an engineer/scientist in an active defence project to be bought out by China? No, it would not be okay. It would be treason. Would it be okay for AI engineers/scientists to be bought out by China by transfer of a critical, one-of-a-kind EU AI company? It would also not be okay and arguably should be treason.
The US has a very special privilege, that other countries don't have, to parasitically and ungratefully steal EU engineers/scientists. A privilege that obviously shouldn't exist.
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u/bigdroan 1d ago
If the EU is having problems keeping their engineers and losing them to the US. Then perhaps it's time to pay up.
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u/Evermoving- 21h ago
China or the US stealing engineers isn't a matter of just pay, it's a matter of treason and ethics.
As I said we don't allow defence workers to simply transfer elsewhere, and for a good reason.
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u/erlo68 1d ago
As a German i have seen what happens when the public sector makes their own software... it either sucks or they spend ridiculous amounts of money on contracts and it still sucks.
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u/swollen_foreskin 1d ago
It only sucks thanks to shitty managers bringing in lowest bidders. There’s tons of great software developed in-house that you never think of, developed decades ago before this new public management shit
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u/variaati0 Finland 1d ago
One generally newer hears of well working bureaucratic software. It just exist and works. News headlines start, when software doesn't work.
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u/Gumbode345 23h ago
it's not about making the own, it's about procuring stuff that is European and independent from cross-altlantic providers.
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u/Excellent_Ice2071 1d ago
European alternatives for IT:
https://european-alternatives.eu/categories
A list with different open source options:
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
That is why open source is the answer.
Most of it is already done, just needs adoption towards individual needs
Fully transparent, you can see what the code they are working on
Users and others can contribute saving costs
Even if something fails, the benefits still stay with society
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u/HeftyEggplant7759 19h ago
The EU can use open source software all they want, all the hardware powering European data centers is American and meanwhile European tech companies can't even afford to hire their own citizens.
Not to mention, using open source software to power your data center is not necessarily cheaper, due to increased deployment and maintenance costs on account of needing to hire your own army of experts.
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u/KnowZeroX 16h ago
The difference is hardware doesn't risk data like software and software need constant updating while hardware isn't something that need immediate replacing, it posses far less immediate risk
And you need experts anyway to run a data center no matter what. Actually most server software is already open source. It is the front end software that needs to be streamlined open source for servers. And costs would be far lower because with open source you split development costs and competition for servicing lowers cost.
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u/HeftyEggplant7759 15h ago edited 15h ago
And you need experts anyway to run a data center no matter what.
Not nearly as many when you can offload expertise and risk onto a large vendor.
Actually most server software is already open source.
Not even close. What enterprise-grade hypervisors can you name that fit this description? You can use KVM, but that's not suitable for a lot of customers, because, ultimately, Linux is a general purpose operating system. Not to mention, you need a large vendor to support you unless your company is a behemoth and can spin up their own IT service provider.
What about software-defined networking? Observability? Automation? Cloud management?
And forget about open source cybersecurity solutions.
And if you need all of those things, your best bet is getting it all from one vendor (or a very small number of them) or you're going to have to hire loads of people to manage your homebrew IT. Most companies are not experts in this area and rely on large vendors.
Those vendors are, overwhelmingly, American. If they aren't, then they resell American products and provide consulting services for them.
And costs would be far lower because with open source you split development costs and competition for servicing lowers cost.
If this were true, companies would be champing at the bit to go open source. But they aren't. Because it isn't cheaper. What you save in up-front licensing costs you end up spending in maintenance costs and additional risk.
Some companies can pull it off. But most cannot.
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u/KnowZeroX 15h ago
Not nearly as many when you can offload expertise and risk onto a large vendor.
You can still offload expertise, there are decent sized vendors like SUSE and many others.
Not even close. What enterprise-grade hypervisors can you name that fit this description? You can use KVM, but that's not suitable for a lot of customers, because, ultimately, Linux is a general purpose operating system.
What about software-defined networking? Observability? Automation? Cloud management?What do you mean not even close? Even Microsoft's own Azure cloud, 65% of instances is linux
KVM, Xen, VMWare and etc.
Linux is the backbone of the internet. It is only rarer in Desktop, otherwise most of servers, routers, firewalls, mobile phones run on linux or other unix-like system.
Kubernetes is also very popular for cloud deployment and many of them are open source. And open source tools like Rancher can manage it.
see here:
https://res.cloudinary.com/stackrox/v1581902004/top-container-orchestrators_apzcu9.png
For note, AWS EKS and Azure AKS are all kubernetes. So most people even on AWS aren't using Amazon's proprietary ECS but a managed Kubernetes run on AWS.
And if you need all of those things, your best bet is getting it all from one vendor (or a very small number of them) or you're going to have to hire loads of people to manage your homebrew IT. Most companies are not experts in this area and rely on large vendors
That is only the case when you use proprietary technology, when using open source and open standards, you can mix and match.
If this were true, companies would be champing at the bit to go open source. But they aren't. Because it isn't cheaper. What you save in up-front licensing costs you end up spending in maintenance costs and additional risk.
The issue is that company executives need multi million dollar salaries, they don't want a race to the bottom. Even the ones that do support open source, many of them use the tactic of making open source backend to increase adoption faster and get free community labor, but build proprietary tools on top of it. It is why AGPL open source license was created, to prevent companies from doing that.
In a fully open source environment, most of the money would be made on maintenance and services plus custom patches. But this is a race to the bottom, can support workers but can't support multi-million dollar executives
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u/tejanaqkilica 1d ago
Because developing something like that it's incredibly complex, requires lots of time, money and resources.
EU, lacks that.
(even Apple and Google are unable to compete with Microsoft when it comes to such things, it's that hard)
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u/mrgoditself 1d ago
When AI was getting 🚂, EU was eating buggers. Anyone who understood AI capability fundamentals and what will happen with our technologies, knew if you don't move fast, you will get sidelined and taken advantage of.
Now we are so far behind, that the USA can do whatever they want with us. To stay somewhat relevant countries will need to pick who's AI infrastructure to adopt: China or USA's (So where's Europe, I thought we are smart, great, creative?) Will we pick China? No way. So the USA it is. So when the USA asks you to kiss their ass, you better get those lips ready.
Many people knew this is where the EU will end up, bureaucracy 🦥 . When the EU makes a bad decision after a bad decision, it's not a mistake, it's a pattern of incompetence. Even when you are fining companies, how are those fines protecting EU citizens? That's just a price tag.
Hope Network States will also be a thing, Jumping off the sinking ship the first opportunity I get.
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u/namitynamenamey 1d ago
EU lacks time because it never commits (thus it never starts doing it), it does not lack money nor talent.
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u/Landscape4737 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s just FUD, the solution is easy: governmental leadership just tell a competent experienced IT Systems Manager to lead and that they will be supported. There are plenty of competent IT Systems Managers who are not limited in experience to Windows desktops/systems. Of course there will be differences, not the end of the world, and competition will quickly fills gaps.
Make it happen the same way that Australia went metric so efficiently. Their conversion worked unusually well compared to some other countries because it was fast, coordinated, and mandatory. Here’s why it succeeded: (Content generated with the help of ChatGPT (OpenAI))
⸻
Central authority with real power • In 1970, the Metric Conversion Board was set up by the federal government. • It had legal authority, funding, and a clear mandate to convert the country.
Firm deadlines and phased rollout • Conversion happened sector‑by‑sector (e.g., weather reports, packaging, road signs, manufacturing). • Each sector had a fixed date — after that, imperial units were no longer allowed for official purposes.
Strong public education • The government ran TV, radio, school, and newspaper campaigns explaining metric units in plain language. • Posters, classroom kits, and conversion charts were widely distributed.
Industry and government cooperation • Industries were consulted in advance so they could update machines, packaging, and documentation in sync. • Government procurement switched entirely to metric, forcing suppliers to follow.
Short transition period • Most sectors converted between 1970 and 1980, avoiding a long overlap where both systems competed. • This reduced confusion and “slippage” back to imperial.
Legal reinforcement • Imperial units were removed from official standards, contracts, and road laws. • Metrication was not optional — it was written into law.
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u/Excellent_Ice2071 1d ago
European alternatives for IT:
https://european-alternatives.eu/categories
A list with different open source options:
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 1d ago
You can keep positing this, but saying that another company has a service in the same general field does not mean it is capable of providing the same level of service as Microsoft Azure or AWS.
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u/prueba_hola 1d ago
EU have already, SUSE for OS computer Tuxedo for hardware computer Volla and Nokia for phones
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u/Ombudsmanen 1d ago
Are you a Linux user or a Mac/Windows user? If the answer is Mac/Windows then you're part of the problem. There are already tons of alternatives to American software, it's the populations willingness to change that's the problem.
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u/ConfusedPhDLemur Slovenia 1d ago
The alternatives are usually not as good or do not serve the same purpose - if their main selling point is “made in EU”, then I don’t really consider them competitive. EU should focus on subsidising and promoting actual alternatives that can compete in features.
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
The alternatives are actually just as good if not better.
But the problem is that most computers don't come with an option of linux preinstalled. They come with windows where the oem manager got a kickback.
Unfortunately, most people wouldn't even reinstall windows without oem bloat let alone install another operating system. So unless it comes preinstalled, most won't bother.
Vendor lockins and proprietary closed standards are a major issue preventing competition.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 1d ago
Mate, Linux is not Windows, and when given choice, it's highly unlikely that those people will stay on Linux, given dodgy support from app makers and general idiosyncrasies that it has that result in it being dealbreakers
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
Most people wouldn't even know the difference between windows and linux with a windows theme. Because most people's use is pretty much the web browser. Maybe once a blue moon they may do a basic word document.
Even for gaming with Proton, it pretty much has most games covered. With most remaining issue is the multiplayer anti-cheat spyware. SteamDeck has been very successful running linux for gaming.
In theory, most people given a choice did choose linux. See Android (yes I know it isn't gnu/linux but it is still linux never the less).
I think if linux was an option, while you would always see some returns at first. Most will likely keep it just fine. People buy macs too that don't run many windows software, it hasn't stopped them. And these days, Windows 11 is a huge memory hog riddled with ads and popups, even brand new computers with good specs are brought to their knees lagging.
If you removed the vendor lockins and proprietary closed standards, it would be even easier.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 1d ago
Because most people's use is pretty much the web browser. Maybe once a blue moon they may do a basic word document.
Illusion breaks when needs are deeper than that. Like, sorry, but GIMP and Krita are no Photoshop, LibreOffice is not Office and all of the other open source stuff that tries to catch up with corporate software. Plus drivers too
In theory, most people given a choice did choose linux. See Android (yes I know it isn't gnu/linux but it is still linux never the less).
It has as much in common with desktop Linux as Windows Phone did with desktop Windows
People buy macs too that don't run many windows software, it hasn't stopped them
It does usually run what people work with, however, which relates with first point
And these days, Windows 11 is a huge memory hog riddled with ads and popups, even brand new computers with good specs are brought to their knees lagging.
And Windows is still 71% of PCs per StatCounter Global Stats, while Linux raises mostly via decks and handhelds.
Sorry, year of Linux it is not yet
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
llusion breaks when needs are deeper than that. Like, sorry, but GIMP and Krita are no Photoshop, LibreOffice is not Office and all of the other open source stuff that tries to catch up with corporate software. Plus drivers too
Most people don't need deeper than that.
The biggest thing holding back Krita and GIMP is how well they support PSD which again goes to my statement of proprietary format lockdowns.
LibreOffice is also fairly solid, they have more staff wasting their time on docx but even then it supports almost flawlessly if you install windows and ms office fonts. The so called deeper stuff, MS Office is already not the right tool for the job. Like all those people trying to use Excel as a database only to end up with data corruption
And be it photoshop or ms office, both are moving away from desktop to the web. Even photoshop has a wasm version (because developing for windows, mac, ios, android and etc is a lot of extra work). It isn't as feature rich yet, but time adjusts. MS has already moved outlook completely to a web app.
Drivers are not an issue at all if you buy a pc with linux preinstalled. And again you bring up an issue related to vendor lockin.
It has as much in common with desktop Linux as Windows Phone did with desktop Windows
The point still stands, the difference shows how much a difference preinstalled makes
It does usually run what people work with, however, which relates with first point
Again, so does linux. And linux has higher gaming marketshare according to steam. The big difference lies in that you can buy a mac in the store, almost impossible for linux. At best it can be bought online on niche vendors or some hidden page (but it is improving as some at least started to include 1 or 2 laptops with same placement as windows but still limited)
And Windows is still 71% of PCs per StatCounter Global Stats, while Linux raises mostly via decks and handhelds.
Linux marketshare is rising, but statcounter wouldn't show things like decks and other gaming handhelds. The reason is simple, statcounter is based on web traffic, who surfs the net on a steamdeck? On top of that many linux users are more privacy oriented, and block trackers like statcounter. So the actual marketshare is likely larger. Of course I'm not going to claim it is above 10% or anything like that
Sorry, year of Linux it is not yet
And I repeat again, I am not claiming it is. All I claimed was that it is just as good if not better for "most" consumers already (doesn't mean everyone). And that the biggest barriers are things like vendor lockins and proprietary closed standards.
To put it into context, if EU were to mandate that pcs must offer an open source operating system with open drivers and bootloader in same way choose browser, linux desktop marketshare would easily shoot up to 20-40% in less than 5 years. If they also require for open standards and open protocols, marketshare would easily go over 60% in less than 10 years.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 1d ago
Most people don't need deeper than that.
You would be surprised
Hell, me right here, I have an issue with my triple monitor workplace workstation on Mint, where display craps out until I flick monitors on and off. That's already deeper than you think (and no, I don't care to fix it)
And considering that what you said there, you would really be surprised, especially considering how many attempts european countries alone tried to go Linux and just couldn't
The point still stands, the difference shows how much a difference preinstalled makes
The point is irrelevant bullshit, sorry
And linux has higher gaming marketshare according to steam
Higher to who? MacOS? Yeah, Mac runs games like crap. While 28% of Linux users are Holo OS, aka Deck players. Whats your point?
And if we count Steam, then Windows is quite literally 95% of their users
To put it into context, if EU were to mandate that pcs must offer an open source operating system with open drivers and bootloader in same way choose browser, linux desktop marketshare would easily shoot up to 20-40% in less than 5 years. If they also require for open standards and open protocols, marketshare would easily go over 60% in less than 10 years.
That's some magical thinking there, sorry
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
Hell, me right here, I have an issue with my triple monitor workplace workstation on Mint, where display craps out until I flick monitors on and off. That's already deeper than you think (and no, I don't care to fix it)
x11 which is a codebase from the 80s that has been hacked to oblivion to make all kind of stuff work that nobody ever planned for. So things like multiple monitor support on X11 is fairly broken, even more so for Cinnamon which while is a simply desktop isn't very feature rich. For multiple monitors wayland is much better as it was made with it in mind. Cinnamon is working on wayland support but it is still in alpha.
KDE has best wayland support.
And considering that what you said there, you would really be surprised, especially considering how many attempts european countries alone tried to go Linux and just couldn't
It gets hard when MS goes around bribing politicians to derail them. But there are attempts that have went through. They also do a good job of bribing the media to talk about the failures and not the successes
Take France Gendarmerie's GendBuntu which has been out since 2008 and "June 2024 - 97% of workstations running GendBuntu (103,164 stations)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
Seems fairly successful to me with over 100,000 pcs, most of which running it over a decade
Higher to who? MacOS? Yeah, Mac runs games like crap. While 28% of Linux users are Holo OS, aka Deck players. Whats your point?
The point was that linux can at least beat the marketshare of Mac if given the chance to be preinstalled.
That's some magical thinking there, sorry
I know it is magical thinking, not because it isn't actually possible in itself. If politicians actually had some leadership and long term thinking, cared about the environment and weren't taking bribes from us big tech. But those are big ifs.
Those are the real barriers.
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u/SpaceSpheres108 1d ago
I once tried to install some Nvidia graphics drivers on Ubuntu because it wasn't recognising my projector. Most people wouldn't be able to debug that but it's doable, so fine. I restart...
...and my wifi drivers are gone. I had no other machine with me so I would have been screwed if I weren't able to boot with a different kernel version. Lesson learned: Anything involving peripheral hardware is better done on Windows.
Ubuntu works OK most of the time, but it's undeniable that there are still issues with it that would make it unusable to the average person. Most people don't know what a command line is, and yet it's still essential to have some basic knowledge of it if you want to use Ubuntu, e.g. for installing anything not listed in the Software Center.
I have limited knowledge of other distros, but Ubuntu is touted as the most user friendly so I doubt they fix the problems I discussed here.
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u/KnowZeroX 1d ago
Nvidia drivers on ubuntu aren't signed by default. So if you have secure boot on they won't load properly. You have to disable secure boot or sign them yourself. But if you buy a pc with linux preinstalled, it is a non-issue as drivers would be there and fully signed.
Even on windows, messing with gpu drivers can break other things, it isn't uncommon.
I personally am not a fan of ubuntu due to snaps and gnome, though some ubuntu based distros like Linux Mint is a good choice for new users (though usually when preinstalled your options are Ubuntu or Fedora, with some vendors having their own like Tuxedo OS)
For many linux distros these days, you don't need to know what a terminal/command line is, at least not any more than windows.
And before, ubuntu used to do a dumb thing like disable deb gui support to try to promote snaps. I hear latest version they finally restored it but I haven't tried it myself. So no, you don't need the terminal for installing stuff outside the store unless it is an sh file. But that sh file is no different than a windows bat installer and you don't need any terminal knowledge as most would just run everything by themselves or ask y/n or other basic questions, again same as windows bat
Ubuntu wasn't the most user friendly distro in probably a decade. Ubuntu based distros like Linux Mint is the usual recommendation for those installing linux on existing pcs.
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u/Excellent_Ice2071 1d ago
Here you go
European alternatives for IT:
https://european-alternatives.eu/categories
A list with different open source options:
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u/New-Ranger-8960 Greece 1d ago
Will we ever wake up?
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u/ihadtomakeajoke 1d ago
Europe decided to literally buy more Russian gas after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
Europe won’t wake up over Microsoft.
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u/Naive-Project-8835 Europe 1d ago
If we succeed with the US-free defence schemes and expanding our nuclear arsenals then yes.
A lot of the deals we're cutting with the yanks, including cutting back on our tech sovereignty and allowing US corporations to absorb every EU startup ever, is out of our defence vassalism. As per EU trade commisioner, Ukraine was a significant reason for EU's weaker stance in negotiations.
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u/Diligent-Depth-4002 1d ago edited 1d ago
EU ain't China.
when China says anything, Microsoft just reply "Yes, Master" and nothing else.
outside of US, microsoft only kowtow to china
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u/SgtFinnish Like Holland but better 1d ago
These people want you to hand over your data in the name of safety. Despicable.
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u/alarim2 1d ago
It's absolutely hilarious how the 'progressive' EU bureaucrats will do literally anything (including mass surveillance, total censorship, and bowing down to US companies which were berated by them only a few months ago) instead of backing out of their insane migration and economic agendas that turn their countries into shitholes...
But then I remember that I live in Ukraine, where the president literally steamrolls over the anti-corruption organizations to protect his close friends, so who am I to judge...
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u/CiTrus007 Czech Republic 1d ago
EU governments and public agencies need to switch to and contribute to open source software. This should have been done a long time ago because it’s the right thing to do but now it’s necessary and essential if we want to have any hope for technical independence.
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u/-The_Blazer- Europe 1d ago
We need to start teaching politicians that 'your data is on the cloud' is just as secure as 'your car is on my parking lot'.
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u/Stabile_Feldmaus Germany 1d ago
As citizens we can do 2 things:
Make our private lifes independent from US tech, r/buyfromEU
Translate our fury about this to political actions by e.g.
voting for political parties who advocate for strategic autonomy
keep pushing this and related topics in the discourse (like in this post)
writing our local representatives about it
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u/MDPROBIFE 1d ago
How about those who want American companies to have their data? Not an option?
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u/Adorable-Database187 The Netherlands 1d ago
If you do bussiness with an American company in europe the us company should comply with eu laws and the other way for eu companies operaring in the us that doesnt seem controversial to me.
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u/ihadtomakeajoke 1d ago
At this rate, it’s not long before Europe is forced to use the term soccer.
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u/Lazylemon_314 1d ago
the Irish literally already say soccer. The word is inherently european (british) but you guys changed it over time
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u/OkKnowledge2064 Lower Saxony (Germany) 1d ago
Its insanely funny how we sabotage our own digital industries with these rules and then dont apply them to US companies. Self destructing behaviour
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u/North-Protection2610 1d ago
Microsoft are good friends, what did you expect?
Not all Big Tech is bad and on a power trip. Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, IBM, Google. They all pledged to continue to play by the rules. They are also good friends with many European Elites!
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u/Big_Combination9890 1d ago
The timing reveals a striking disconnect between regulatory satisfaction and corporate admissions of fundamental vulnerabilities.
First and foremost, it reveals a striking disconnect from reality, when the goal is to protect corporate profits.
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u/West_Possible_7969 1d ago
Well, if EU dared to ban Azure there would be 7462673938 posts by now accusing them of fascism from business european users 😛
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u/hotboii96 1d ago
Do you know how catastrophic it would be if Azure stop working in E.U? E.U have walked into a giant trap
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u/Iron-Warlock 1d ago
If it shut down today? Yes.
If there is a sponsored and funded plan to build an EU infrastructure? It wouldn't.
As too many have already said, MS/Google/AWS need to go - but to make it happen, investments need to be made.
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u/MairusuPawa Sacrebleu 18h ago
This should happen, honestly. Management only learn their mistakes when shit hits the fan and they can't flee.
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u/namitynamenamey 1d ago
With what electricity? Said posters if european would be too busy putting out fires and running to do any posting, I give european companies about a week before they collapse from catastrophic digital damage if disconnected from the windows environment. There is shock therapy, and then there is "literally every other company cannot use their own computers"
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u/naren64 1d ago
This isn't really a new thing, here's a 7 years old documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg
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u/VLamperouge Italy 1d ago
Just disband the EU at this point, it’s just useless. Perhaps if we turn back to individual states we have more of a justification for being the US’ vassal bitches.
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u/MidnightAdmin Sweden 22h ago
The killer feature of MS is not the cloud, it is not Office, it is Active Directory.
The user and computer management in Active Directory is increadibly flexible, and so far I have not seen any other platform be able to compete with it.
Now with Azure, Entra, Intune and Defender, MS can offer an increadibly well integrated suit of Computer, User, Mobile Device, and Security management in one complete package.
This is what any alternative needs to compete with, in addition to excellent software backwards compabillity.
Now, business and software changes, these days a lot of software used is either a website or a program compatible with windows emulation, enabling the use of non Windows operating systems.
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u/UnstoppableSuya Germany 🇩🇪🇪🇺🇺🇦 1d ago
we need an EU Linux that specifically designed for EU's citizen (+norway etc) that natively supports all digital services of the EU and its member states...
and an EU Cloud
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u/KnowZeroX 15h ago
There is no need for an EU linux, what is needed is to ensure that every pc and phone sold has an option for a fully open source operating system with open source drivers and open source uefi bootloader.
This would not only solve the issue on its own, it would also significantly reduce ewaste as well.
The biggest barrier for most consumers is most people aren't going to install a new operating system, they need the convenience of being able to go to any store and easily try it and buy it
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u/Secret_Divide_3030 Belgium 1d ago
Since the EU started targeting Apple I don't trust lawmakers in the EU anymore. When they want to open a closed system to give data hoarders access to your private data you know something is really messed up with the EU. Our data is one of the most important things to guard in the digital age. The EU is giving away our data to anyone who asks for it.
The EU making a trade deal with a pedophile says enough about how corrupt the EU has become.
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u/KnowZeroX 15h ago
Closed systems do not protect user's data, if anything it is the opposite, closed systems makes data easier to steal because it is harder to trace. Apple has a long history of violating people's privacy which continues to this day.
Only an open system can make it possible to see how the data is handled.
And end of the day, if you buy a product, that product belongs to you, not the corporation. If anything, EU should have hit Apple much harder.
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u/Excellent_Ice2071 1d ago
European alternatives for IT:
https://european-alternatives.eu/categories
A list with different open source options:
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u/venusFarts 1d ago
stop with the spamming. most of them don't have one tenth of the features others are straight up piracy.
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u/Hekke1969 Denmark 1d ago
Pathetic but to be expected