[quadrifoliate]

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.

[Barrin92]

>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.

[quadrifoliate]

> 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".

[sbacic]

I'm just going to go out and say it: Europe is poor. At least compared to the US. You can see this plainly when comparing GDP per capita but it's particularly telling when you look at the revenue of tech giants, such as Alphabet and Meta. For example, Alphabet made roughly 50% of its revenue from the US and about 30% from EMEA in 2025.

Now compound that issue with conservative investors, a fractured "single" market and a strong preference for social equality over entrepreneurship.

[gib444]

> and no significant large technology companies

I can only assume this is a comparison to the US

The world doesn't care about the US yard stick so much. Even less now than before. We in Europe don't care our economy is smaller than the US, that our cars are smaller etc.

Bigger is not always better

[frumplestlatz]

You say stuff like this, and then simultaneously complain when the US winds up owning the entire technology stack and being the predominate western superpower.

So which is it? Does scale not matter, or are you unhappy with the outcome of ignoring it?

[quadrifoliate]

Sure, but at least you have homegrown car companies. They make cutting edge cars that are mainstream, and even popular abroad.

You have no equivalents for software. That's why all of your consumer and most of your official stuff runs on US software and cloud platforms, and why headlines like these are...headlines rather than just being normal.

Don't get me wrong -- as a US consumer, I would love for this to change and have EuroCloud or whatever. Hetzner isn't too bad. But it doesn't have the scale and service breadth that Microsoft, Amazon or Google bring.

[palata]

The US government has been working really hard on making sure that nobody can compete with the US Big Tech. See what Cory Doctorow has to say about this, for instance.

[anon291]

OSS software is also mostly owned by the US. This entire thing of 'replacing' American software with American software under a different commercial model is so silly.

[antirez]

That's not true. For instance in the field of video pipelines ffmpeg is the standard, and was started by an European (French) person. Runs on Linux of course, that ..., and so forth. Do you really believe in Europe there is no the tech capability to recreate the tech stack? This is an extremely naive way to put it. US tech is much more developed because of money infusion even on companies that take 10/20 years to get productive. It was the right call, by the US, to put things in this way, but the European disadvantage is not for technical merits.

[Bengalilol]

Could you elaborate? <https://nextcloud.com/blog/press_releases/digital-sovereignt...>

On a side and more general note: "Global Innovation Index 2025"

"Europe hosts 15 economies ranked among the global top 25, including six in the top 10. Switzerland (1st) retains the global lead, followed by Sweden (2nd), the United Kingdom (6th) and Finland (7th). Thirteen out of 39 European economies covered moved up the ranks, marking a notable increase from nine last year.

Notable movers include Ireland (18th), Belgium (21st) and Norway (20th), which breaks into the top 20.

Eastern European economies also show solid momentum. Lithuania (33rd) leads globally for unicorn valuation and digital innovation – with leading positions in app creation, ICT use and Knowledge-intensive employment.Europe is also home to dynamic innovation clusters, led by Germany with seven clusters and the United Kingdom with four, including Cambridge and Oxford. However, European innovation clusters trail the US in venture capital strength."

<https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2025/article_0009...>

[maelito]

The problem is not ownership. It's dev force. We're not bad here in europe, not bad at all.

[meinersbur]

It doesn't matter whether OSS is American (in whatever sense) -- anything that is America-specific (e.g. server addresses) can be patched for a localized European version. The different commercial model does matter: American law does not apply (Cloud Act, National Security Letters, ...)