Google has criticized the European Union’s intentions to achieve digital sovereignty through open-source software. The company warned that Brussels’ policies aimed at reducing dependence on American tech companies could harm competitiveness. According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.
Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, warned of a competitive paradox that Europe is facing. According to the Financial Times, he said that creating regulatory barriers would be harmful in a context of rapid technological advancement. His remarks came just days after the European Commission concluded a public consultation assessing the transition to open-source software.
Google’s chief legal officer clarified that he is not opposed to digital sovereignty, but recommended making use of the “best technologies in the world.” Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection. Local management or servers located in Europe to store information are among the options.
The EU is preparing a technological sovereignty package aimed at eliminating dependence on third-party software, such as Google’s. After reviewing proposals, it concluded that reliance on external suppliers for critical infrastructure entails economic risks and creates vulnerabilities. The strategy focuses not only on regulation but also on adopting open-source software to achieve digital sovereignty.
According to Google, this change would represent a problem for users. Walker argues that the market moves faster than legislation and warns that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.” As it did with the DMA and other laws, Google is playing on fear. Kent Walker suggested that this initiative would stifle innovation and deny people access to the “best digital tools.”
The promotion of open-source software aims to break dependence on foreign suppliers, especially during a period of instability caused by the Trump administration. The European Union has highlighted the risks of continuing under this system and proposes that public institutions should have full control over their own technology.
According to a study on the impact of open-source software, the European Commission found that it contributes between €65 billion and €95 billion annually to the European Union’s GDP. The executive body estimates that a 10% increase in contributions to open-source software would generate an additional €100 billion in growth for the bloc’s economy.
According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.
Is Google seriously arguing that the money these nations save can’t be added to their GDPs?
That’s what it sounds like. Or am I confused?Don’t worry, Google is trying to confuse you
To an enormous extent are todays data centers, cloud providers, and all the techology the whole world use today based on open source. Without linux, curl, ffmpeg, and so on nothing in todays high tech society would work. Google, as it is today, would not exist if it was for all the open source they leech of.
Well Google contributes a lot to open source, but I get your point.
Nah that’s it. Their logic is seemingly if you don’t give the money to Google it’s not contributing to economic growth.
Two economists are walking down the street and pass by a pile of dog shit. One of them (a sadist) turns to the other and says “I’ll pay you $1000 if you eat that dog shit”.
The other performs an internal utility calculation and eats the dog shit.
Continuing their walk, the second economist sees another pile of dog shit and makes the same offer to the first. The first economist also agrees, and eats the dog shit. They walk on.
After a while the second economist says to the first “I can’t help thinking we’re worse off than when we started this walk. We both have the same amount of money we started with, but we both had to eat shit.”
The first economist replies “Worse off?! We’ve just engaged in 2000 dollars worth of trade!”.
Look, by certain ways of calculating GDP growth and trade, it’s probably true that if the money isn’t being spent on software licenses and so on, it means there’s less economic activity going on.
The whole point of open source / free software is that you’re not locked into someone’s proprietary software ecosystem. You don’t have to continue paying license fees. So, if the governments simply stop paying for software licenses, it’s probably true that their GDP will technically shrink. But, that assumes the money won’t be spent on something more useful.
They are saying FOSS isnt companies, google’s value is tied to GDP in some EU countries. If they see less growth so does the GDP.
Yanks are whores who only think of money and kids.
The last line needs a bender meme.
‘Open source means we make no money’
No i think the comment is less direct than that.
For much of government, the underlying objective is to contribute to GDP. For example, funding healthcare means a healthier population who can be more productive.
So by saying “this policy won’t contribute to GDP” its a very general way to say this is not what’s best for your population.
At least I think thats what theyre saying.
As an aside, savings dont directly improve GDP, by definition.
They are suggesting that going to open source solutions won’t result in new industry in their countries (i.e. that Google won’t be opening offices and data centers and such there).
It’s a pretty bogus statement anyways, but it’s not COMPLETELY senseless.
When corporations or conservatives talk about “the economy”, simply replace it with “rich people’s bank accounts” and it makes sense again.
They are trying to gaslight you into still believing in the trickle-down-theory, against decades of evidence.
And all mainstream media as well as centrist parties (including the US Democrats) join in.Perhaps they understand economic growth the same way the orange rapist understands tariffs?
The company warned that Brussels’ policies aimed at reducing dependence on American tech companies could harm competitiveness.
Just what I’d expect a monopoly to say.
Fuck you. Alphabet.
Increased competition from open source alternatives harms competitiveness? By forcing them to compete and maybe actually innovate?
They mean it would harm their competitiveness.
As in, “We’d be less competitive if you switch to a competitor” (in this case FOSS).
I’ve reached the point in my life where I find this more arousing than booba
But not vagne?
Maybe we should short the shit out of these arseholes as they go down.
“well yes you actually need to stay dependent on us to be competitive” -fucking ridiculous
Of course Google hates open-source. They can’t compete with it. Same shit with Microsoft: people are just afraid of trying Linux, but those who do, rarely look back at Windows.
If I could get all my games to work on Linux, I’d nuke my dual-boot in a second. But I’m 99% linux at least.
(And yeah, I’ve tried the compatibility tools.)
Out of interest, when’s the last time you tried? So many games now seem to have Linux compatibility because of Valve’s push for the Steam Deck (and Machine). I’m in the same boat as you though, still haven’t taken the plunge.
The last barrier, anti-cheats.
*the companies that refuse to use Linux compatible anti-cheats
or make their anti-cheats linux compatible :)
The kinda sad part is that a lot of people say “just don’t play those games then”, I play Valorant and PUBG with friends and I can’t force them to find us something else to play just because I want to switch to Linux.
which is basically spyware anyway. I prefer to not play those games entirely.
I blew away my Windows install in favour of Fedora about a year ago. There are only two games in my entire library that don’t work - Call of Duty and Battlefield, both of them because of anti-cheat fuckery. The other 300+ that I’ve tried playing have just worked. Zero tinkering required.
Times have really changed. The life hack you should know is to use ProtonPlus to install Proton-GE which is a customised version that has a bunch of fixes for different games. You just set Steam to use this one over Valve’s default version for all games and you’re pretty much done. They’ve integrated tweaks and fixes for thousands of games, on a per-game basis, so if you’re using this build of Proton then you have nothing else to do. No fiddling, no command line monkeying, just launch and play, same as Windows.
It’s honestly very impressive these days.
I never worked for Google, so I can’t say for sure, but I have this weird suspicion that they use a shitload of open source software, and I’m not just talking about their Android OS or Chromebooks, but for their most core businesses.
It wouldn’t be odd to think that Google might not exist except for their being able to use the open-source software that people had made before they founded their company.
The alternative is that they were complete idiots who paid for all sorts of retail software.
Of course Google hates open-source. They can’t compete with it.
Again, it’s just my supposition, but I’d bet that they can’t compete without it, either.
For any major tech company, apart from ones that are absolutely dedicated to proprietary software starting from firmware up through the OS and on to applications, like Microsoft and Apple, it’s going to be deeply hypocritical to hate open-source.
I have this weird suspicion that they use a shitload of open source software, and I’m not just talking about their Android OS or Chromebooks, but for their most core businesses.
“Open source for me, but not for thee.”
That’s also why they bait-and-switched us with AOSP.
They can’t compete with it.
I meant “They can’t compete against it.” Interlanguage translation nuances :)
You were using the phrase correctly. “They can’t compete with it,” is the standard way of saying what you intended to say.
I was playing off of the normal meaning of your statement to make a turn of phrase. In other words, I am intentionally using weird phrasing, and placing it next to your normal phrasing for humor and impact.
The problem with linux is the rough edges. It’s SLOWLY getting better.
2026 linux I find to be BARELY usable as a daily driver.
2006 linux was just trash.
In both cases, power users may have a different experience.
I tried installing a program called “hardinfo”. My ZorinOS software store didn’t find it through flathub.
So I googled it, found a .deb file, which my Zorin store loaded up to install.
Then I hit install, and it spits out a message like “Software was not installed. Requires these three dependancies, which will not be installed”.
Didn’t tell me why they didn’t install. Just said “Hardinfo needs these programs. Good luck figuring it out asshole!”
Ok, it may not have said it in those EXACT words…but you get the idea.
That being said, I recently booted up my old Windows 7 machine, and…I have no idea if the OS was always this slow, or if it’s gotten slower due to being SO out of date. It felt sluggish. And it theoretically SHOULD be faster. I have 16GB of ram now instead of 8GB. And it’s running off of SSD instead of a 5400rpm HDD. Theoretically it should have a huge speed boost.
Maybe I’m just used to a lighter OS after using it for this many years.
Okay, so:
I tried installing a program called “hardinfo”. My ZorinOS software store didn’t find it through flathub.
That’s fair. Repo fragmentation is a real thing on Linux, and it seems like Ultimate Systems didn’t put their software on Flathub.
So I googled it, found a .deb file, which my Zorin store loaded up to install.
So instead of just using
apt– like every introductory tutorial to Ubuntu and its derivatives leads off with – you chose to do it (effectively) the Windows way that you’re familiar with where you hunt and peck around the Internet for an install file. It’s an understandable mistake (that I think most Windows expats make at some point), but the blame from this point on lies squarely on you.Then I hit install, and it spits out a message like “Software was not installed. Requires these three dependancies, which will not be installed”. Didn’t tell me why they didn’t install. Just said "Hardinfo needs these programs. Good luck figuring it out asshole.
You didn’t have the dependencies, and it told you which ones to install. Why does it need to tell you why it needs them? Nice to have, I guess, but if it’s mandatory, it’s mandatory. No amount of explanation is going to get you around the fact that this software will not function without them. Dependencies aren’t a Linux thing; they’re a reality of modern programming. And I imagine
aptwould’ve automatically resolved this and asked you to also install the deps.So instead of just using apt – like every introductory tutorial to Ubuntu and its derivatives leads off with – you chose to do it (effectively) the Windows way that you’re familiar with where you hunt and peck around the Internet for an install file.
Because in 20+ years of off and on using linux, I’ve never once gotten apt to install anything. I have however fucked up my whole system by doing sudo apt update/sudo apt upgrade.
I avoid terminal like the plauge.
You didn’t have the dependencies, and it told you which ones to install. Why does it need to tell you why it needs them?
I didn’t say I want to know why it needs them. I’m upset it tells me that it tells me it needs them, and then says “they won’t be installed”, but won’t tell me WHY they won’t be installed. If the program needs those dependancies, just install them. Instead it juat says “we know you need the dependancies, but we’re not going to do that”.
I wasn’t necessarily suggesting
aptin the CLI; just the APT repository generally, which ZorinOS’ built-in package manager has access to. Ifsudo apt install hardinfowill find it, I have to imagine the GUI frontend will. Granted I don’t use Ubuntu or its derivatives because Ubuntu is terrible, so I can’t say for sure, but this sure doesn’t seem like their fault.
Do dependencies work somehow differently under Windows? If a win program lacks some library it would say just the same: “I need an additional library. Install it.”
In Windows, every program is usually packaged with all of its dependencies (except really basic ones that are part of the OS, or very common extra ones like the Java or .NET libraries). They don’t get installed separately; you just get a fuckton of extra copies, of various assorted versions, because every program you install has its own.
Good luck with the redistributables who are not allowed to be put in distribution packages, but must be installed from m$.
Why they are not part of the base OS is a mystery for me, it’s so stupid it must be some ulterior reason.
I don’t know how many times I had to deal with missing
VCRUNTIME140.dllorMSVCP140.dllor other crap on Windows. This is not a Linux exclusive problem.
Reading through the comment thread I can’t help but think that your whole situation is self imposed.Dependency problems are universal and there are tools to deal with it. It just seems that you’re refusing to use those tools (even Windows has
wingetnow instead of relying on every installer bundling / linking its dependencies).
Now, it’s fair to not want to deal with CLI, but your cited experience is an outlier. It is not normal to break your system with justapt update && apt upgrade -y. As a matter of factaptwill not upgrade if there are conflicting dependencies, you sort of have to force it to break your system.
There are wrappers that provide a GUI forapt(and evendpkg, which is usually invoked when double clicking a.debfile) so why not using them?In Windows dependency issues are often offloaded to the provider of the software, but they are still just as present. In Linux this problem was solved[1] a different way — via package managers. I don’t want to be the “skill issue” guy, but refusing to use the platform intended tool to solve a problem is kind of a “skill issue”. At some point you are responsible for knowing how to use an OS, just as you are responsible for knowing how to drive a car if you want to drive a car.
dependency hell is still an issue so take the word with a grain of salt. ↩︎
This is a Zorin/Ubuntu issue. I installed it from the AUR on my Arch system and it just worked. Don’t buy into the memes. Arch isn’t any harder. It’s just different.
Yeah… don’t recommend arch to a person that refuses understand the workflow on linux, please.
It doesn’t work exactly as on Windows, well, fuck you.
I have enough trouble supporting my AUR packages due to people on derivative distributions. I don’t have time to deal with self-entitled assholes.
“Drug dealer criticizes drug user’s plan to quit.”
The British came to China with warships when the Chinese government wanted to ban Opium. So I wouldn’t expect anything else from these crapitalists.
Crapitalists.
Excellent, thank you 😁!
Thanks for confirming we’re on the right track, google.
MoRe OpTiOnS iS bAd FoR cOmPeTiTiOn
competition is bad for competition
checks out
translation: having more competitors harms our chance of winning against them
You guys don’t see what they’re scared shitless about? It’s the fear of an EU-based true open source Android fork/competitor.
Also when they say FOSS will not contribute to “economic growth”, they mean Alphabet’s. Greedy pigs.
Oh yeah. They’re shit scared.
Their bottom line is about to collapse out from under them due to their sheer stupidity.
Also, Google criticizing others for using FOSS is the height of irony. But one that tracks very well with what they did to FOSS.
the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.
Wrong.
creating regulatory barriers would be harmful in a context of rapid technological advancement
Wrong.
Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms
What does he not understand about digital sovereignty?
According to Google, this change would represent a problem for users
No, for Google. Also, wrong.
that the market moves faster than legislation and warns, that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.”
If that’s the price to avoid technofaschism… And, again, wrong.
Tl;dr: stop wanking, Walker.
I don’t know if he believes his own made up BS here, but these are some really idiotic statements. I’m glad the EU is taking steps to not use infrastructure created by a fascist government. At this point I don’t think there’s a reason to distinguish FANG (and their friends) from the government seeing how buddy buddy they all are with each other.
This is like a “no shit Google doesn’t want this” which makes moving over to the Euro style even better. Everyone opposed to what huge tech corporations are doing (should be everyone) should see this as a sign that you should make the change.
He doesn’t.
They lie and thieve.
Fuck you, Google.
All these craptastic US tech companies originally started on internationally developed free and open source software. They hoover up capital and talent then abuse their market power. Fuck them all.
They all run on Linux - Torvalds is a Swedish speaking Finn. Greg KH who maintains stable is German. So many libraries and core system contributions by Germans like Drepper and Poettering. Youtube ran on mysql for years from Finnish Widenius. Google built a lot of stuff with Python - from Dutch Guido van Rossum and c++ from Danish Stroustrup. All of the video and audio sites rely heavily on ffmpeg, orginally from French Fabrice Bellard. Lots of them also using virtualisation stuff which includes qemu, also from Bellard. So much comp sci research from Europe and UK. Chrome and Safari originated with KDE (German) code. Europe did all the heavy lifting while the US took all the profits. I’m not even European but every country has the same experience. They have no idea how they are viewed.
they have no idea how they’re viewed
No, they don’t.
I’d like to see Google try and run their company without open source. The operating system, programming language, databases, language libraries, network stack, etc. is such a long list of crucial things. Google is being totally nonsensical to suggest open source doesn’t drive a large part of today’s economy.
I’m not sure why anyone in EU, bloc or therefore canada should even care what an American company opinion would be at this point. They said they were moving on. They did.
The leopard of consequences is hungry for tech oligarch faces.
Eat, you majestic creature. And godspeed.
Car company complains that city is developing Metro system.
We literally removed “don’t be evil” from our mission statement, but you can totally trust us, bro.
Google
really fun fuck you google
