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PayPalThe European Commission recently launched a call for evidence on a newer initiative about the importance of open source, and their reliance on non-EU countries. As covered by CADE, the initiative is called "Towards European open digital ecosystems", and it sets out how they're trying to sort their approach towards the open-source sector across the European Union.
From the official EU document they note how the new strategy will "address the economic and political importance of open source, as a crucial contribution to a strategic framework for EU technological sovereignty, competitiveness and cybersecurity" and that it will "set out actions to strengthen the broader EU open ecosystem of solutions and products in critical sectors, including internet technologies, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, open hardware, and industrial applications (e.g. automotive and manufacturing)".
The problems they want to tackle? They say the "EU faces a significant problem of dependence on non-EU countries in the digital sphere" which "reduces users' choice, hampers EU companies' competitiveness and can raise supply chain security issues as it makes it difficult to control our digital infrastructure (both physical and software components), potentially creating vulnerabilities including in critical sectors".
Another thing they do highlight is that "much of the value generated by open-source projects is exploited outside the EU, often benefiting tech giants". They go on to highlight various existing initiatives where the EU funds open source, but they mention how "supporting open-source communities solely through research and innovation programmes is not sufficient for successful upscaling and that it is critical to support emerging developer communities and businesses in scaling up via sustainable support and governance frameworks".
A lot of regular readers and people in the tech sector will already be very aware of all the issues, especially with lots of big US tech giants reaping the benefits of open source with barely a contribution back. It's not difficult to see why the EU would want to break away from constantly relying on US tech, especially with the current political climate too.
Their key objectives:
- Continuing development and ensuring appropriate visibility of EU high-quality and secure open-source solutions and demonstrating their added value;
- Addressing issues of deployment, usability, software supply chain security and governance, maintenance of code and project sustainability to ensure take-up and upscaling;
- Supporting emerging open-source business and sustainability models for open-source companies and foundations, including by developing public-private partnerships;
- Promoting best practice and encouraging the public sector, specialised business sectors and large customers to contribute to and adopt open source; and
- Supporting market integration, especially with legacy systems and policy alignment.
You can see the document for the consultation on the official EU website, and if you're an EU citizen you can submit feedback on it too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Yeah, I was pretty enthusiastic when I read that call and send some proposals and praise their way.
Edit: Also you don't have to be an EU-citizen to support feedback.
They've a seperate category for that.
On the nitpicky side, the call for evidence is for how to steer european open source toward their objectives, not the importance.
Last edited by LoudTechie on 12 Jan 2026 at 1:47 pm UTC
Edit: Also you don't have to be an EU-citizen to support feedback.
They've a seperate category for that.
On the nitpicky side, the call for evidence is for how to steer european open source toward their objectives, not the importance.
Last edited by LoudTechie on 12 Jan 2026 at 1:47 pm UTC
5 Likes
My proposals were.
Publish cryptographic hashes of restricted material, so small player can collaborate to implement filters for illegal information like CSAM and copyright protected material allowing them to more cheaply preform moderation responsibilities.
Back export controls up with sovereign hosting, iron clad NDA's and money.
Simplify copyleft enforcement.
Edit:
What would you guys propose?
Last edited by LoudTechie on 12 Jan 2026 at 2:04 pm UTC
Publish cryptographic hashes of restricted material, so small player can collaborate to implement filters for illegal information like CSAM and copyright protected material allowing them to more cheaply preform moderation responsibilities.
Back export controls up with sovereign hosting, iron clad NDA's and money.
Simplify copyleft enforcement.
Edit:
What would you guys propose?
Last edited by LoudTechie on 12 Jan 2026 at 2:04 pm UTC
2 Likes
To force tech giants contribute back to open source, the open source projects should force GPLv2 licence. And have actual auditing entity to ensure compliance. EU can enforce that. MIT licence and similar ones won't work, they don't require even crediting authors and contributors. That's why I don't like those "permissive" licences. We don't need another intel management engine, also known as Minix.
1 Likes
Quoting: vic-bayTo force tech giants contribute back to open source, the open source projects should force GPLv2 licence. And have actual auditing entity to ensure compliance. EU can enforce that. MIT licence and similar ones won't work, they don't require even crediting authors and contributors. That's why I don't like those "permissive" licences. We don't need another intel management engine, also known as Minix.What could the EU do to help achieve this?
0 Likes
The sooner the EU realizes that the US are not an ally anymore, the better.
9 Likes
Quoting: syylkThe sooner the EU realizes that the US are not an ally anymore, the better.That sound like input that's best directed at the "strategic foresight report" call for evidence.
2 Likes
Quoting: LoudTechieOn the nitpicky side, the call for evidence is for how to steer european open source toward their objectives, not the importance.Well, it's both. It's clearly important because they're looking to base their future on it, and they want to steer people to them.
3 Likes
Open source mobile phones,
Open source desktops,
From there,
EU based payment systems for easy EU based online transactions,
EU based and open source security layers for said payment providers.
Educational programs to show people how to be the owner of their own system again, and how to do critical thinking again.
Ban on American cloud services like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I mean firewall block. Boom!
Edit: gave my feedback.
Last edited by tfk on 12 Jan 2026 at 4:45 pm UTC
Open source desktops,
From there,
EU based payment systems for easy EU based online transactions,
EU based and open source security layers for said payment providers.
Educational programs to show people how to be the owner of their own system again, and how to do critical thinking again.
Ban on American cloud services like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I mean firewall block. Boom!
Edit: gave my feedback.
Last edited by tfk on 12 Jan 2026 at 4:45 pm UTC
4 Likes
Quoting: LoudTechieEdit:I was thinking about stuff like this about a month ago and I’d like to see 2 things, both giving more state funding towards open-source I think could work:
What would you guys propose?
1. Requirement that all software commissioned by European states be open sourced – so that it is easily maintable, available to citizens, and providers of that software can be changed (there could be exceptions for specific use-cases, like I understand to keep new military tech classified for some time; I’d still require that to eventually become open-sourced after, say, 20 or 30 years).
2. Maybe a separate open-source fund working similarly to private copying levies and the like – with a tax on income from products involving the use of open-source components. The idea would be that, say, if a company has annual income of over ~1 million euro and the product they’re selling or the infrastructure they maintain uses open-source components (libraries, databases, operating systems…), they pay some low tax (0.5%? 1%? I’ve no feel for what a specific good value would be) of the income. They could avoid paying that tax by either showing that they use absolutely no open-source (and thus don’t benefit from open-source directly) or that they are already contributing back by releasing their stuff (so if they release open-source and earn by maintaining it themselves, they’d be free from the tax). The money would be used by the state to pay foundations, societies, and other organizations maintaining and supporting open-source projects.
Point 2 is pretty much treating open-source as the public infrastructure it de facto is and fund it from taxes from the institutions that use it, as normally it’s done with public infrastructure (roads, media, health-care…).
Last edited by silmeth on 12 Jan 2026 at 5:08 pm UTC
0 Likes
The [inkscape](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16213-European-Open-Digital-Ecosystems/F33363220_en) post is an interesting read
1 Likes
Quoting: vic-bayTo force tech giants contribute back to open source, the open source projects should force GPLv2 licence. And have actual auditing entity to ensure compliance. EU can enforce that.EU has created a GPL compatible license - [EUPL v1.2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence). It's actually translated into every single EU language, and by lawyers, not volunteers, so it's more likely to hold up in court.
2 Likes
Quoting: tfkOpen source mobile phones,This all sounds amazing as an American. Especially the payment thing. Here we are so screwed with horrible options for sending money around in friend / family groups. Most people in my social circle still use venmo for everything which is just paypal, a horrifying company.
Open source desktops,
From there,
EU based payment systems for easy EU based online transactions,
EU based and open source security layers for said payment providers.
Educational programs to show people how to be the owner of their own system again, and how to do critical thinking again.
Ban on American cloud services like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I mean firewall block. Boom!
Edit: gave my feedback.
Microsoft is so screwed in the corporate sector. I don't think they care though, right now Satya's brain has turned completely to mush with ai garbage so he can't even think properly. The entire corporate world over the next decade is going to dump office (or copilot 365 app LOLOL) and windows, so that's a TON of revenue lost. Again I don't think microsoft cares, but it'll be interesting to see what happens with windows.
2 Likes
Quoting: LoudTechieMy proposals were.[Perceptual hashing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_hashing), used for copyrighted content and CSAM detection is very different from cryptographic hashing. The goal is to catch images and videos that are "sufficiently similar". It's as vague as it sounds, and unless configured with a very low sensitivity is guaranteed to cause false positives. When configured with low sensitivity, it's possible to bypass. When you take into account the quantity of CSAM perceptual hashes out there, false positives happen regularly. So you can either block everything, or block random things. Far from a solved problem
Publish cryptographic hashes of restricted material, so small player can collaborate to implement filters for illegal information like CSAM and copyright protected material allowing them to more cheaply preform moderation responsibilities.
Using perceptual hashing for copyright enforcement is even worse, because the algorithm has no way to account for [exceptions to copyright](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright). That should always be a human's judgement call, but with copyright trolls in the picture you get a lot of pressure towards false positives.
0 Likes
1. In Germany we still have to pay "Solidaritätszuschlag" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarit%C3%A4tszuschlag).
This money could be given to EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) instead.
2. Forbid (proprietary) file formats like doc, docx, ppt, pptx, xls, xlsx, rtf, tnef, ... in the EU (public and private sector). We already have ODF.
Force developers/companies of proprietary software to support ODF as first-class citizen.
Every mail server (public and private sector) should be configured to deny mails with these file attachments.
3. Force M$ to release a free converter for all their proprietary file formats into ODF. The results must be 101%😁
4. Forbid proprietary protocols and APIs.
5. Force developers/companies of proprietary software to support free SQL-Backend alternatives like MariaDB and PostgreSQL and treat them as first-class citizen.
This would be a good start... man can dream.
Edit!
Ohhh boy, I forgot the most important...
6. Forbid DirectX and Mantle.
Last edited by johndoe on 12 Jan 2026 at 8:49 pm UTC
This money could be given to EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) instead.
2. Forbid (proprietary) file formats like doc, docx, ppt, pptx, xls, xlsx, rtf, tnef, ... in the EU (public and private sector). We already have ODF.
Force developers/companies of proprietary software to support ODF as first-class citizen.
Every mail server (public and private sector) should be configured to deny mails with these file attachments.
3. Force M$ to release a free converter for all their proprietary file formats into ODF. The results must be 101%😁
4. Forbid proprietary protocols and APIs.
5. Force developers/companies of proprietary software to support free SQL-Backend alternatives like MariaDB and PostgreSQL and treat them as first-class citizen.
This would be a good start... man can dream.
Edit!
Ohhh boy, I forgot the most important...
6. Forbid DirectX and Mantle.
Last edited by johndoe on 12 Jan 2026 at 8:49 pm UTC
0 Likes
Quoting: JarmerThis is actually making great strides.Quoting: tfkOpen source mobile phones,This all sounds amazing as an American. Especially the payment thing. Here we are so screwed with horrible options for sending money around in friend / family groups. Most people in my social circle still use venmo for everything which is just paypal, a horrifying company.
Open source desktops,
From there,
EU based payment systems for easy EU based online transactions,
EU based and open source security layers for said payment providers.
Educational programs to show people how to be the owner of their own system again, and how to do critical thinking again.
Ban on American cloud services like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I mean firewall block. Boom!
Edit: gave my feedback.
Microsoft is so screwed in the corporate sector. I don't think they care though, right now Satya's brain has turned completely to mush with ai garbage so he can't even think properly. The entire corporate world over the next decade is going to dump office (or copilot 365 app LOLOL) and windows, so that's a TON of revenue lost. Again I don't think microsoft cares, but it'll be interesting to see what happens with windows.
They're fusing the national payment providers many countries have naming it Wero.
0 Likes
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