Open source software strategy of the EU

Which as a result includes this:

Which means the EU now has a PeerTube and Mastodon account/server :slight_smile:

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A really warming news, even after considering the fuzzy underlying architectures and technologies.

I wonder which technologies you mean and what you mean with fuzzy. Mastodon?

I mean mostly the programming languages, web browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome.
Linux distributions, the whole setup and programming environments, to the databases themselves.
It’s all a big mess, not an engineered system, therefore little motivation is there to work on them in a long term. (Even if it went well until now, the recent times where almost everything is a blob and a bloat)

I’m really sorry, but I still don’t get why you say and conclude this. I haven’t read the docs in full myself, just skimmed through it and I was mostly excited because they setup their own Mastodon and PeerTube instance. Maybe you can point me to the bits of information you refer to and arrived at these conclusions? I also find it strange you list Google Chrome, is the EU funding that project?

Well I’m not treating technologies as some self isolated thing that does not depend on other technologies.
Funding is also a really weird thing that happens all the time, indirectly and directly.
Mastodon and PeerTube are only the shiny frontends in relation to the whole system.
I mean if you have basic development experience, there is little to source here.
Look up the repositories of the projects. The time taken to develop.
And if you still feel like everything is just alright there, try to implement some feature.
In the end, overall general design tells the story already of the struggles
to achieve the basic functionality that is ergonomic.

I’m still not entirely sure what you mean. What is it exactly that you want the EU to do instead?

I’m not sure what the EU funds exactly. But most projects are dependent on each other. E.g. the openssl project is managed by just a handful of people. They get funded. Also this forum uses many projects, where some of them are funded by the EU. By giving money, you make people work more on these projects, instead of just treating it as a hobby. Even hire more people to work on better features. Granted, many of these projects are funded by companies already, providing a service where these projects are part of.

And don’t forget the Horizon 2020 project which funds a wide range of large projects, advancing Europe’s technology position.

I think the EU is doing quite well. But then again, maybe you read more about this than me, so that’s why I wonder what you read so I can see where you base this conclusion on. So far I don’t really understand what you’re saying. Mastodon and PeerTube are just some nice visible things. But they support many, many more projects. Nextcloud also comes to mind, which allows us to be more in control of our data. Jitsi is also funded, many amazing projects are supported by the EU.

If it’s a hobby project, it’s already a failed one. You either engineer things or you do a hobby work and then extend it. It’s never a case where a hobby project is suddenly an engineering project. You can extend it, with professionalism and engineering, but the core premise is always the same. It’s a hobby. Same problems with the Linux kernel and the C language itself. Both never been of a serious matter and require a lot of effort to make anything basic and simple to work.

Do actual scientific engineering, not development on a hobby projects.

All I’m saying that these things technically won’t last a decade, Facebook only with huge effort is able to pass two decades due to overwhelming market success, but even now facing troubles to keep up the employment maintainance, continuing business as usual, as it start to lose marketshare with all the billions of dollars. And the money itself becoming less of motivation to live by etc.

All open source projects depend on other projects. “Standing on the shoulder of giants” :nerd_face:

Also what I mentioned in this list are depended on other projects. I work as a Linux systems engineer to support scientific research. Many of those applications are based on other smaller projects, sometimes maintained by university personal, sometimes a handful of volunteers. I’m also a Fedora developer, the packages I often build are based on some small scale GitHub projects, which I then have to package as well. Sometimes maintained by just one person. Supporting these projects really helps. A mind at (financial) peace is able to focus more. And someone is more productive if he/she can work on what he/she likes. I think the EU is doing well with this. Because this also opens the way for a resource based economy, where ideas are shared and build upon further. Instead of patented and protected from free reuse.

The EU is not able to do actual engineering. They are forbidden to compete within the market because they are publicly funded. They can however support public projects with public money strategically (public money, public code). And favor some companies with (tax) benefits and funding (like Fairphone). They can’t start a company or directly compete within the market. Which is a good thing :slight_smile: