The alternatives don't have to be perfect. Reducing the dominance of any single country is a good thing.
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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thrirha klha ~~mmkdn~~ mmkn
i'm currently learning arabic. did i get your name right?
Yes, except for the last word, there's no 'd'
right, i misread it as ممكدن
Mentally ready. Actually not ready at all.
Given they broke their own procurement laws to choose US tech companies for their cloud infrastructure its definitely silly.
FYI, Proton CEO also caught flak for praising Trump picks, so they are playing both sides of the field FYI
in that article (which i had to use the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension to comfortably read) Proton states "we do not comply with US subpoenas from either party." which of course is because they comply fully with Swiss subpoenas LOL
what's a subpoena?
When it's the government asking.
I just wish that the narrative would focus more on the anti-competitive behavior of these firms to make sure we don’t fall into the same monopolistic trap in Europe. We need variety, we need competition. Focus on standards, low switching costs, and allow reverse engineering.
don't talk about it… do it!
France is. The EU is working on trying to get EU-made solutions in use. Switzerland is not in the EU and neither is the UK.
Now that we established this, we can have a productive conversation.
Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
Not true. We've seen the U.S. leverage big tech against its perceived enemies by shutting them down remotely. Unless Europe bends over backwards to serve the U.S. fascists' every whim, this form of blackmail-by-proxy is going to continue, and it's only going to get worse.
So the calculation is not: "cost of switching" vs. "cost of continuing the existing vendor lock-in".
It is: "cost of switching" vs. "cost of shutting down operations for good".
It's really easy maths if you break it down to its core. It's maths that even the most bone-headed of our leaders and business "experts" can do.
Sure it is. It's the US that's not ready for what it will cost...
France is switching from Microsoft Office to Libre Office right now for government employees, and it's saving them money in licensing fees.
Once the transition is finished, they're projected to save millions each year from just that switch
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Europe is not ready for what that will cost.
True. But it will be okay. They can find somewhere else to spend all the money they save.
I think its great that Europe is looking to rely less on US tech but nothing about whats going on with Europe (especially within the EU) makes me think privacy is a focus.
Companies that have had their whole data on Google/MS servers for 20 years certainly don't care for privacy the way you and I do. But they are certainly realizing that US providers are not the way to go. Baby steps I guess.
That reminds me of a quote I heard once. Probably from Cory Doctorow but I cannot remember now.
"Everyone wants you to have privacy... just not from them."
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It will never happen as long as slugs like van der Leyen or Merz are running the show. These people are completely incompetent.
Oh yes. Because Merz builds data centers, and Der Leyen is known for making IT decisions at EU companies. They also happen to be the queens of private investors.
No.
Merz and von der Leyen are extremely competent, they just don't pursue the goals they say they do. They may even belief that they are pursuing other goals than they really do.
They believe in trickle down economics despite all evidence pointing to it making everything worse. In their pursuit of economic growth, they do the exact thing that in their model should boost, but in reality stifles growth. They increase the wealth redistribution from the poor and middle class to the rich.
And they are so damn good at it. That's the reason money has put them in their current positions.
They are extremely competent in doing the wrong thing.
They believe in trickle down economics despite all evidence pointing to it making everything worse.
It is high time we switch to Pinata economics.
I like you
Well, get to it then! Ain't got all year.
oh god.... we have built everything on microsoft stuff and the higher ups insist that anything that legally can be hosted on the cloud be migrated to azure. This will cause us (the actual workers) untold levels of pain if it were mandated by the eu.
I still wish it does become mandatory though
Meanwhile, my employer decided to switch from a self made Linux platform (with it's pitfalls due to the usual "it's free, why should we put so much money into maintenance" reasoning) to Microslop. I and multiple other people warned them, again and again.
I think many companies are basically stuck with Microsoft (Excel, Word, Teams, Sharepoint, Onedrive etc). Switching to something else is going to be a pretty serious project. It's going to be expensive and time consuming.
Totally worth doing IMO, but convincing the CEO is another matter. I guess we need a cautionary tale before the executives decide to reserve a few million euros into rebuilding a significant part of the IT infrastructure.
I think many companies are basically stuck with Microsoft (Excel, Word, Teams, Sharepoint, Onedrive etc).
Tbh, office and collaboration tools are the least of our worries; there are plenty of good alternatives which, with some financial support, can be adapted to suit companies' needs in very little time. What should worry us more are the tons of critical applications tailored to a very specific area of administration and business. The software that runs the power plants and hospitals. The software that manages logistics and industrialised production. The software that runs our accounting and HR. That's the Windows lock-in that we're not going to shake off over night.
Oh, that and the hardware vendors + hyperscalers...
Same with industrial automation, power grid, production management, etc. Most people don’t even realise how much critical software is Windows-only.
Just have companies get tax reductions if they use EU only software. Voila, it’s done within months - to the shock of every it- admin out there.
Yep. Money steers the decision making process. Politics determines how money works, and companies just go with the flow.
If they put all the effort they use to change things in favor of ai to migrate to software alternatives, it would be a perfectly viable project
Convincing CEOs is not our job. In general they have neither the obligation nor the habbit to take anything else other than their KPIs into consideration. Convincing elected polititians to legistlate is our job.
Some know already, some will bow to reason, many will do whatever keeps them elected. People will need to re-learn to play the long game.
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Wasn't Europe going full open source?
You know how there's theory and practice?
Not Bavaria 🙄
The "C" in "CSU" is for "corruption".
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