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1. quadri+Dx[view] [source] 2026-02-03 18:48:42
>>AareyB+(OP)
This needs to go much, much further before it is even mildly effective. The EU has a population of ~450 million (more than the US) and no significant large technology companies. They are largely dependent on US Big Tech as a population.

I love that there is a lot more enthusiasm about OSS adoption within EU software devs, but at a population or government level there doesn't appear to be any coherent strategy to gradually replace US tech other than these knee-jerk headliner moves that don't move the needle much.

As a software consumer I would love it if there were open-first software standards adopted within this large of a population that would force US Big Tech to actually compete rather than rest on their monopoly power. But I am pretty skeptical and pessimistic about this actually being able to happen, given the historical failures of the EU.

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2. Barrin+2F[view] [source] 2026-02-03 19:18:55
>>quadri+Dx
>and no significant large technology companies

I have to do my patriotic duty to remind you that SAP is the 6th/7th largest software company in the world by market cap. I know not as exiting as notepad with AI but they do exist.

That said US software giants are a disease for democratic societies. If Europe wants software sovereignty we don't need "significant large software companies" we need a hundred medium sized ones that reflect the diversity of the dozens of nations on the continent. We don't need gilded age robber barrons owning the largest communications network shaping politics. We need a democratic genuinely market respecting solution, we don't need to emulate the techno-feudalism of the US or China.

Europe needs in fact to be more ambitious than to build its own Microsoft. We need a genuinely open ecosystem which is not going to have as its goal to extract value out of its users.

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3. quadri+QK[view] [source] 2026-02-03 19:44:26
>>Barrin+2F
> If Europe wants software sovereignty we don't need "significant large software companies" we need a hundred medium sized ones that reflect the diversity of the dozens of nations on the continent...Europe needs in fact to be more ambitious than to build its own Microsoft. We need a genuinely open ecosystem which is not going to have as its goal to extract value out of its users.

Sure, but can you be honest and admit that you don't have any of this yet? Just to take a simple thing like messaging, Europeans mainly use WhatsApp (US), FB Messenger (US), and Telegram (Russian) to communicate.

> SAP is the 6th/7th largest software company in the world by market cap

Okay I will give you that one. Market cap doesn't always equal ubiquity though; ask your non technical (or even most of your technical) friends what SAP does and you will get blank stares. Ask them what Microsoft does and you will usually get a reasonable answer that's not "Notepad with AI".

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4. sirwit+MP[view] [source] 2026-02-03 20:05:25
>>quadri+QK
You're missing Signal which has gained a lot of traction in the last years.

Apart from that it's hard to take statements from such an ignorant US centristic point of view about what europe is/has/has not seriously.

Let's see how things will play out for europe and how our souvereignty efforts will impact the US economy.

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