I wish there was somewhere I could earnestly and intelligently have discussions about EU related tech and tech policy, but HN isn't it. As you can see already in this thread, there's 14 comments besides mine and they are 100% negative, and about 95% low effort/reactionary.
Of course there's a lot to criticize and also to appreciate about the EU. But this is supposed to be a forum for intelligent, thoughtful discussion and yet as soon as the EU gets mentioned it basically turns into reddit.
What points could we even discuss? It's all terribly vague and I imagine nobody here can even tell how that supposed 'strategy' is different from the one 5 years ago. And half of the things mentioned there, like the EUDI Wallet or age verification have been heavily criticised for good reasons.
If the headline was "EU invests 100B into open source to further independence from US", I imagine things would be different. But right now it's "we have intentions to have plans about tech and open source in the EU sometime in the future".
A huge chunk of HN is 20-something kids who are way too online and parrot in earnest Polandball-style memes like "Germany doesn't have freedom of speech" or "France has too much regulation". They are fine to discuss tech with but I wouldn't take their opinions on politics or culture seriously
True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it in the last decade regarding most things digital.
Most EU initiatives have damaged everyday UX on the web and in tech. Yes, some malicious compliance has played a role by over-reacting to well-intended regulations. But overall the EU has brought this upon itself.
This specific Open Source Strategy memo is typical. It's in fact not a strategy but a list of key goals and requirements, put together in technocratic jargon. It will have zero effect on the actual open source ecosystem.
> True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it
Or you have been brainwashed by the billions spent annually to make you believe stories about bendy bananas and occult initiation ceremonies as a condition of being a member.
> Most EU initiatives have damaged everyday UX on the web and in tech.
Are you really trying to suggest that GDPR and PECR are bad pieces of legislation because businesses have decided that they’d prefer to give you a bad UX?
Right. It’s the loopholes that make them bad
What loopholes?
- digital services act mandates interoperability in chat, but apparently companies can put require obnoxious terms for interoperating parties such as sharing their users IP addresses - which service is going to agree to that if a very large portion of the alternatives target people not wanting to share data with Facebook?
- pay "ridiculous price" or accept ads & tracking instead of allowing to disable tracking
NOYB have raised a complaint on the second one for a publisher in the Nordics.
https://noyb.eu/en/nordic-media-giant-schibsted-switches-pay...
i haven't heard about the first one yet. i totally believe it, but do we have an actual example of facebooks demands? are they documented somewhere?
the second one i experience daily and it's driving me nuts. i am sure it is actually illegal, but i have yet to find an explanation on why it should be allowed or a convincing legal argument in why it actually violates the rules. something that i could send to violators.
The "legitimate purposes" pre-ticked hidden box on some cookie dialogs, for one.
AFAIK, those are not legally compliant.
I think you never tied to read the GDPR [1]. It's awfully vague and the reason businesses went on with the bad UX is because it required interpretation, and the little meaning there was in the beginning was completely lost in translation.
So yes, it's all the fault of the EU.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng
I read it in full years ago and found it quite clear. Which parts did you find to be vague?
Look if everyone agrees the outcome of the law has been incredibly annoying, then that is ultimately down to the law and/or its enforcement. The point of the law is to provide incentives to self-interested actors for good behaviour. I see a lot of complacency in these threads, combined with a lot of frankly absurd posturing, like if anybody is against the GDPR, they must’ve been brainwashed by Elon Musk. No! People dislike it because they dislike its practical effects, and frankly the EU should take responsibility for that and try to fix it.
> People dislike it because they dislike its practical effects, and frankly the EU should take responsibility for that and try to fix it.
What’s to fix?
A business needs a legitimate reason to process personal data, people need to be sufficiently informed about how their data will be processed. These are not impossible obstacles. Anyone who claims otherwise is acting in bad faith because they know that people would not agree to what the business wants to do with their data.
> True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it in the last decade regarding most things digital.
Not for me, my opinion of things like GDPR and forcing usbc on phones gives me the impression that the EU is holding corporations accountable and looking out for normal people.
Its been mentioned before but i feel like while alot of negative views might be organic, alot are also the result of tech companies' smear campaigns against the EU
" True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it in the last decade regarding most things digital. " And these criticism destroys any goodwill from me. These are non topics my among political diverse friends. Most people criticise the EU internet regulations are American cry babys. Their arguments are shallow, their knowledge about EU is low.
If your friends have never said “man I hate these cookie popups”, they sound like a highly selected group.
Don't be silly, the legislation doesn't state that websites have to show cookie popups. It's rather where the term malicious compliance enters the picture, a compliance incentivized by the financial interests of the biggest advertising businesses the world has ever seen.
^ That, and lazy devs who prefer to add a one-line cookie banner js, than review if they need or even use tracking cookies.
To be fair, I don't remember people complaining about cookies. The question is fairly simple, etc. Meanwhile ads? They try to steal the attention. So yeah, lots of friends complain about internet ads, not so many about cookies. I'm EU based.
Even on HN we're still human, and have the same human weaknesses and failure modes.
HN is full of people which EU is fighting against, so of course is there little chance to find sane discussions here. You could try some european subreddits, or local tech-sites from Europe, there is usually a better chance to find people who benefit from EU-regulations and have a more rational view on them.
It's not only HN. You can see big tech media hate against any effort europe does. Everybody is mocking europe for building 10 years old chip fabs or their measly small unusable clouds or bad startup scene.
It's interesting because not that long ago nobody cared about what europe did in tech. Or more like everybody was fine with the fact that europe imported computers and exported something else. It was like that forever. I am not sure where this is coming from. It almost seems like even these weak efforts might mess up with somebodys business.
It’s even more interesting because a big supply chain problem during Covid were related to old chips used in tons of mechanical engineering products, like cars. Given that experience you could argue that the old fabs are much better value for money for resiliency.
Asianometry just released a video about this: The EU Chips Act is a Failure [0]
Definitely the most cynical video he ever released.
- [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqoX9OIR-DI
Is cynical? I see lot of mocking in the comments but the video is basically saying to focus on the uncool older stable stuff and use that for stability. The very not recommended path there is to jump on hype of AI chips and fund some random Mistral AI chips.
There is a type of videos, where people mock US-citizens for their ignorance about the rest of the world and how things are working there. Those mocking EU for their efforts, usually have that same smell.
Don't forget to say Russia is behind it.
I didn't say that because I don't think it. Honestly, I expect it's mostly Americans plus a couple of self deprecating Europeans making these comments.
The thing is that Europe needs to really decouple as much as possible from crazy dictatorships such as Russia or the USA. US companies are part of that toolbox of containment that the USA is presently doing against Europeans.
Sooner or later Europe will wake up. Right now we still have too many lobbyists but this will change - at the latest when key lobbyists are put in jail for many decades. Sadly this also means the current EU commission has to go to jail too.
Unfortunately, even figures such as the leaders of the United States or Russia — or their associates — won’t end up behind bars either.
Mastodon works fairly well for that I think.
Is there a specific instance that you believe would be most suited to discover like-minded individuals on this particular subject?
https://fosstodon.org seems like a good fit but is invite-only
Any instance will work I think, just start following someone like https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert and you should discover relevant people and hashtags soon enough.
I guess the hate is because the EU also invented the following monstrosities:
- CRA (cyber resiliency act): Manufacturers must handle and release security patches for vulnerabilities, and developers are required to report actively on exploited vulnerabilities and breaches.
- PLD (Product Liability Directive): A failure to provide critical security updates or the presence of exploitable vulnerabilities can now legally constitute a "defect" and if defective software causes physical harm or property damage, manufacturers are strictly liable and cannot contractually exclude or limit this liability.
And the kicker is this: Non-commercial open-source software is generally exempt from these commercial liability frameworks. However, if an open-source component is integrated into a commercial, for-profit product, the responsibility shifts to the corporate manufacturer.
So good luck making some money of your open source project where the risk outweighs any potential profit, or integrate an open source project into your commercial offering.
Sounds like plausible clauses to me? Please explain why they are so toxic. What cases are there where these clauses present an unfair threat or disadvantage to a business?
In case it is unclear from my tone, I am genuinely curious.
All of this makes perfect sense
There was so much more they could do... like 25 years before requiring detachable batteries, they should have required selling the OS separately.
IIRC Microsoft has a no liability clause in its licenses. How did they react to this?
? Usually the clauses arent valid from the contracts and you can sue Microsoft on court. What did you expect?
What is your point again? All of the above sounds perfectly fine to me.
Honestly, as a European, I am okay with this.
I want the US tech community to continue thinking of us as some sort of technological backwater. Ridiculing and deriding us, so they never see as any place where they are welcome. Since given the last ten years, they pretty much aren't. There's basically little to nothing that US tech services have to offer Europe.
With the European Chips Act I already a total disaster, please help me with your intelligence, thoughtful discussion to explain the feasibility of miracles to me in rational terms, since the EU is obviously oblivious to the fact, that they are delusional and hubris might be a better term to explain, what "the EU" wants to achieve - and maintain.
BTW, the EU also plans for a energy transformation, being a military powerhouse, surveillance state - what else could be wish into reality?
Sovereign manufacturing supply chains? A competitive EV company? A competitive space launcher?
How about a healthy native birth rate and relatively low levels of immigration?
But to create that many strategies, you're gonna need a huge EU bureaucracy. So better create a strategy to reduce the growth of EU bureaucracy, too.
If you create one, I would join
Free to copy this code base https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters
> Of course there's a lot to criticize and also to appreciate about the EU. But this is supposed to be a forum for intelligent, thoughtful discussion and yet as soon as the EU gets mentioned it basically turns into reddit.
You dislike criticism? I find criticism an important part of discourse and discussion. HN is very clearly not anything like reddit - just the insane amount of censorship on reddit alone, is already one argument against that claim. Many more could be given. I have been using reddit in the past for many years, so I know how reddit changed. Not that everything is perfect on hackernews; I dislike the "you are posting too much" limitation, for instance. But we don't have over-eager censor-mods here whereas that was locking down numerous interesting discussions on reddit.
With regards to the EU situation: the EU is in a very strange situation. On the one hand it is doing good things; this then gets cancelled by the EU commission acting as a pure lobbyist group, as well as a huge army of bureaucrats who want more and more money and dream about assimilating more and more countries, which makes zero sense. Whether the EU will succeed with regards to their open source strategy or not, who knows. What I do know is that individual countries, such as France or the Netherlands, are quite intelligent when it comes to good decisions (Germany is absolutely undermined by lobbyists, so it is totally paralysed here); I am not convinced the EU is in a similar situation. It would have to be reformed, but people in Brussels don't want to see their job axxed away, so nothing will improve here.
My recommendation is that if you are unhappy, go and talk about it - but don't expect others to turn to your assumptions about how a discussion should happen when it comes to the EU, because they may not share your opinion here.
> You dislike criticism
No, I love criticism, as long as it's balanced and thoughtful, and invites discussion rather than being knee-jerk reactionary. Please read my comment more carefully.
> No, I love criticism, as long as it's balanced and thoughtful, and invites discussion
You forgot to add "and it matches my worldview of things". Knee-jerk criticism is very fine, like "Microsoft sucks" anytime someone mentions Microsoft. You can just ignore it and move on.
No, I intentionally didn't add that. Please challenge my worldview, engage and disagree me. Just put some effort in, please.
However, you're still missing the salient point of my comment - that is, overwhelmingly the comments on any post related to the EU here are low effort, negative, reactionary. Honestly, I feel like you're not willing to engage with the point. It's not even the negativity that's my main issue here, it's the overwhelming low-effort, thoughtless nature of it which prevents any attempt at genuine discussion (positive or negative). It's groupthink, reddit style, and while HN is far from perfect there's almost no other subject that brings out this kind of reaction. Except for React, maybe.
You're wrong.
That's because American BigTech Bros are afraid of the below and will take every opportunity to diss on it.
"Support uptake of open source alternatives to proprietary solutions together with Member States and the Digital Commons EDIC — cloud, workplace tools, secure e-mail, decentralised social media."
[dead]
The only good thing EU ever did in the last 25 years was GDPR in 2016. It has been slowly eroding everything else.
The DMA is a great initiative for more market competition.
Great, now I can install an app on iOS without having Apple's approval or cut, right? No, you cannot. You still report and pay fees to Apple. This is the general trend: EU regulates something it doesn't understand and the result is a mess that companies need to deal with.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/26/app-store-eu-rule-chang...
It is not. It is a law to help loser companies benefit from the R&D spend of others. Like message "interoperability" between platforms. Instead of letting the best product win by consumer choice, they're forcing every messaging product to become mediocre. And the list could go on.
It is in the interest of our societies to make sure the markets work, and continue to work. That’s why we created market regulators. If a winner wins so much that they threaten to destroy the market, the importance of having a market trumps the winner’s right to win.
This is monopoly 101. That’s why the US broke up Standard Oil.
> Instead of letting the best product win by consumer choice, they're forcing every messaging product to become mediocre.
Do you really believe products win because they’re the best? I’d strongly argue that monopolistic power and loss-leading VC investment is what drives success.
Yes. This is why, for example Whatsapp is the most used messaging app in the world: it is lightweight and super simple. It could have been any number of apps, but they won fair and square.
This was the first example that comes to mind. And hardware wise I would argue the iPhone is the best phone because so many people buy it compared to other alternatives. And I don't believe for a second people buy because iMessage.
R&D spend? In messaging product?
Sorry, but these companies spend much more effort on making sure their product is walled off and incompatible with everything than giving it any actual quality.
> R&D spend? In messaging product?
You think Whatsapp for example is this lightweight and easy to use on basically any phone because no one spent a dime on some R&D on how to make it the way it is?
I am not well versed in Android or iPhone software development, but yes, I don't believe that making a non-bloated mobile app is pushing the frontier of software engineering.
There could be some arguments made somewhere as to where R&D money could go, perhaps somewhere in the backbone that billions could use, but the UI is not it.
All that said, I don't know how it furthers your initial argument exactly, as the DMA "beneficiaries" benefit from this lightweightness in zero percent. If anything, it's a negative, because one could assume they have to do better than that with what they're offering.
Interoperability is what enables consumer choice and the best product winning in the first place.
Theres no choice if all your friends are on a network that's not interoperable.
Every day, I pass by numerous signs and plaques reading "funded by EU funds." Most of the time, they are attached to public transport or road infrastructure. For anyone genuinely trying to understand the EU's impact — rather than just defaulting to blind hatred — there are plenty of public resources available. You can find maps and project lists detailing descriptions, funding amounts, and progress statuses.
Granted, this data is usually "boring" by today’s dopamine-driven attention standards, so it's no wonder people rarely talk about it. But if you actually stop and take an interest in what has been accomplished, you start noticing the impact everywhere—it just takes a little effort. After all, how hyped can you really get over a repaved road in some remote village you've never even heard of? You can't. But the people living there certainly feel the impact, even if they don't always notice where the money came from.
Go search for maps provided by EU or your government sites, for instance https://mapadotacji.gov.pl/?lang=en
You might disagree with certain aspects of the EU, but leaving a rage-baited, hateful comment is the easy way out. Looking at actual accomplishments—despite your frustrations—takes real effort.
For stuff which actually can matter and had impact on daily lives (beside aforementioned public transport impact):
The intend of this comment is just to show that it's not "nothing" if you bother to look, the stupid/bad/ugly is beside the point here.We can discuss lots about EU. But does it make any sense here… EU is for regulations only. Which sometimes make sense (phone costs while traveling), but mostly not (CRA, planed prescription of electric vehicle quotas for business, planed yearly “old” car inspections, bottle caps attached to bottles, clothing waste regulation). EU has no military power and is obviously crippled defending the interests of member states. There is also commonly known secret, that many countries have tons of organizations to acquire EU money for useless programs and projects. There is no secret, that EU fantasies are steered by gazillion lobbying groups while the country representatives are not the brightest ones. Rather the ones seeking exorbitant untaxed EU salaries. I wouldn’t say that in current form EU is something special or especially useful.
So instead of adressing the article and provide the potential base for a intelligent debate, you decided to raise the bar by lamenting?
My impression in general is that there is rather a very EU friendly view here on HN in general, but HN is critical of everything.
So I also say, lot's of nice words, great that they at least start so late with that now, but more concrete steps would be more welcome.
"Making public administrations anchor users and contributors to open source, through procurement guidance, open-source friendly tendering, strengthening the Open Source Programme Office and its networks, reusable public digital assets and by embedding openness and sovereignty in digital investment decisions"
Because this for example sounds great. But is it very concrete? It sounds like it, but I don't see how it is.