- [PDF] Letter.
Nearly 100 orgs plead for homegrown lifeline amid geopolitical tensions
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/17/european_tech_sovereign_fund/
Nearly 100 orgs plead for homegrown lifeline amid geopolitical tensions
Start with MS Office and Teams, end it with Windows.
🐧
Government needs to fully migrate to open source. Instead of re-inventing the wheel contribute to existing projects.
Open source is the way.
Eurolinux with EU Commission funding would hit hard.
EU commission backing suse would go hard.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Just use open source. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. I’m a full stack developer and I’ve never given Microsoft a dime.
Well, truth be told, my gaming PC came with Windows and I did buy Flight Simulator but I felt dirty after and some of the silly airplane peripherals weren’t working right with Fedora so I kept it dual boot. That was before Steam Deck and Proton, though, so I should probably test it all again.
ByteJunk@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is surprisingly myopic from someone who supposedly works in the field.
Where do your full stack applications run, my friend?
Because unless you’re in China or Russia, the answer is either AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.
Nobody is looking to reinvent the wheel. The call is for the EU to invest heavily in infrastructure, like building its own chips, creating its own data centres, and yes, developing its software industry to provide alternatives to all the proprietary/closed stuff.
Bjornir@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Nobody is forcing you to use the cloud, you can host your apps on your infrastructure. Of course the cloud has its uses, but I think it is way overutilized and many companies could save quite a lot of money if they returned to on premises.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m going to give a sincere answer.
Usually AWS (or Vercel and Mongo Atlas if it’s a Node/MongoDB situation or an early dev situation). I forget all the brand names the other cloud providers use and have to do a search for “EC2 equivalent Azure” or whatever. You can’t be an expert in everything, after all. Plus, Azure has admin pages where I have to use Chromium instead of Firefox and it’s like, “Come on, assholes.” I don’t mind Google Cloud but it’s rarely cheaper and Incant justify it to someone paying me.
I know Amazon is evil. I cancelled my Washington Post subscription — I lived in DC so I kept it longer than most would — because Jeff Bezos is a fucking menace. But you kind of have to pick one or keep a chart on your desk with all the different brand names and what equals what.
Polderviking@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
The steam deck is exactly what convinced me to give Linux a whirl on my main gaming pc again. Everything that runs on a steam deck should run on any Linux PC. So far zero regrets, performance is on par with what I was seeing on Windows, proton is an absolutely bonkers development.
I do have to end this by saying I don’t do online gaming so I have not had to deal with anti-cheat bullshit that doesn’t want to work on anything that’s not Windows.
Uncurious3512@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You monster. How dare you call youself an open source enthusiast. Turn in your badge and gun.
/s
audaxdreik@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
As someone who has worked in the tech industry near Seattle, I don’t know how well known it is to the wider populace or people in Europe, but open source is absolutely anathema here. It’s seen as insecure, unstable, and unreliable.
I work in IT so I’ve tangentially worked across a number of sectors supporting their stacks and it’s pervasive within the American culture. There is a major de-prioritization of in-house IT knowledge and sysadmins in favor of enterprise support contracts. When shit hits the fan, it’s less important to have a knowledgeable team and more important to have a foot to stamp down on until the issue is resolved. Often that foot has another foot that stamps down, onward and onward until someone manages to engage the MSP or cloud provider that set the service up initially with their scant documentation.
It’s a nightmare both for tech workers and from a cyber security perspective. A lot of this contains my own personal bias and perspective on the matters, but let me say, I have stared into the void and I can’t stop screaming.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I definitely learned that working with a law firm once. I could have set them up something more secure with an open source stack but what they really wanted was a company to blame if things weren’t as secure as I promised.
I imagine that’s why a lot of governments and big companies pick a big corporate vendor when it’d be cheaper and better to hire people. There’s less liability if you can blame a vendor than a specialist in the event something goes haywire.
joel_feila@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
as someone getting into the it field. My current employer could make more of their IT department in house but they don’t want the responsibility of that that want someone ELSE to take the blame when something fails.
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
European countries already have a lot of open source software grants tho can you imagine if all thay money that goes to Microsoft and co would go to open source? That’d be crazy.
I’m a full stack dev as well and contemporary software is really not that hard given proper funding and structure. There’s nothing open source can’t replace.
eager_eagle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
MSFS 2020 runs fine with proton and my thrustmaster gear. 2024 still has a lot of issues to my knowledge.