European biz calls for Euro tech for local people

Danish consultancy Netcompany is the latest European business to warn of dependency on US technology as unpredictability in the White House continues to eat away at trust in the country overseas. In a post on its home page, CEO André Rogaczewski called for "European solutions—built by European companies, run on European data, …

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxes and housing

Such proposals often seem like suggestions to spend more taxpayer's money by the EU central government. But bureaucratic solutions are not the way to go.

Most Californian companies employ a lot of foreigners, including Europeans. So why do they move to California?

Solutions: stop taxing work; tax high risk investments less; and most importantly - kill housing/mortgage "business" once and forever, so that workforce can easily find a place to live near business centers.

The housing issue has plagued USA, Europe and recently China. It is this banking profiteering/pyramid that has caused recent enormous debt, money printing, and finally inflation. Housing must be regulated similar to energy supply monopolies, so that possible gains should never be spectacular, just reasonably sustainable and reasonably investable - like bonds. Don't allow banks easily create mortgage debt, so they are forced to reallocate their energy to financing entrepreneurship instead.

EU could also issue "green cards" to foreigners having high tech qualifications. Especially young. Multiple European languages are a substantial barrier by itself - so let's remove one.

[Dan 55]

Re: Taxes and housing

If you don't like income tax, what would you replace it with instead? Accumulated wealth is one idea but for some reason the average voter would vote against that, they believe Elon Musk is acting in their interests.

There are already EU green cards, but they are blue.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Accumulated wealth is one idea

- another idea is income tax rate relative to accumulated wealth. The more you have, the higher rate of income tax.

Because wealth has power-law properties, as it tends to concentrate like a star-shaped network. Besides wealth is corruptive, so preventing accelerated accumulation makes total sense.

Such tax would also encourage spending. Great majority has mostly debt (not wealth). So why would they vote against it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So why would they vote against it?

They did over in Trumpistan last November. The MAGA cult votes for tax cuts for Musk, Bezos and the rest of their ilk.

The old saying is perfectly true.... There is nowt as queer as folk.

Naturally, that is banned in Trumpistan along with words like Woman and Women who according to Mucky Musk should shut the hell up, get on their backs and let him father their children. Woe betide if one of the brood turns out to be Gay, Lesbian or Trans.

The 'Dear Leader' of Trumpistan thinks that VAT is a tax on imports from the USA. He can't accept that we pay VAT on almost everything regardless of where it originated.

The sooner Starmer gives Trumpistan the finger the better in my opinion but naturally the local Traitor in Chief (Farage) would not like that one little bit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: > Accumulated wealth is one idea

Such relative tax could substitute many other taxes, as it covers both income and wealth. Even inheritance. Or corporate to prevent monopolistic growth and stimulate dividend distribution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Taxes and housing

"kill housing/mortgage "business" once and forever, so that workforce can easily find a place to live near business centers."

There's only so much housing and land around major business centres, if you act to prevent property bubbles by what will act as price controls, then how will housing be allocated? Even in the fully controlled economies of the Soviet Union, many workers faced very long commutes because it was not feasible to match housing needs and employment needs in near enough the same place.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Soviet Union, many workers faced very long commutes

- fair point. But they also had fairly extensive and cheap public transport. Most of Europe has it too.

Why is UK's public transport so expensive and tax-costly? Does the low-taxed single housing in London make sense? Low population density makes public transportation a double burden.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: > Soviet Union, many workers faced very long commutes

A lot of high rise housing built in London and other UK cities was so awful a lot of it has been knocked down to build the sorte of houses people want to live in. The survivors of what were at that time called slums are much sought after for refurbishment.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Taxes and housing

Tax companies based on the distance over which staff commute.

[heyrick]

Dear President: FAFO

See title.

[and I]

Re: Taxes and housing

As a European who moved to California the lure was not the taxes, these equate to around the same, mortgages, house prices, general cost of living in the bar area is higher than a lot of Europe. You talk about the housing issue, here in the South Bay good luck finding anything worth while for less than $1 million, rental is about $3.5 to 4.5k per month. People wanting a decent size family home are moving to areas outside the bay and facing seriously long commutes now that traffic is back post Covid. The solution you discuss would help with that but it's got nothing to do with why people go to California for tech jobs.

It's the salaries, they are way higher. Plus the weather and access to mountain, desert, ocean, good wine country all within a few hours reach... that's a nice bonus. Offer me the same salary back in Europe and I'll be back like a shot.

[Anonymous Coward]

And again, why does Europe have lower salaries for same skills? Except Switzerland, probably.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you comparing ?

Some how I doubt that US companies pay >40% of your take home salary in social charges on top of what they pay you.

But then again why would I ever want universal healthcare, education, pensions, social security, etc ?

I mean that’s like giving MY money away for the benefit of society as a whole. Nobody wants that surely ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> why would I ever want universal healthcare, education, pensions, social security, etc?

But nationalization of services meeting most public needs is sub-optimal, as it promotes enormous bureaucratic overhead, inefficiencies, and ultimately gov indebtedness.

Yet the most important problem has not been addressed - housing speculation. The cost is 80% of the overall problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, so you believe that libertarian shit argument?

Sure, there are many bloated nationalised services just as you suggest, but that doesn't have to be a consequence of it being nationalised.

The bloated industries could be made more efficient whether they are private or state owned.

The advantage is you're not giving taxpayers money to shareholders. See the privatised English water fiasco as a prime example.

[Anonymous Coward]

> libertarian shit argument

Then your non-shit approach must equally apply to the real estate. It must be "nationalized", because housing is more important than anything else on your list. For example, locals should not influence building permits or height of nearby buildings. Capital gains from real estate should be heavily taxed. Rental prices should be regulated.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the AC you are replying to, but not the previous AC you replied to. As such, the only example I gave was the water companies.

But I'll answer you anyway.

Locals should be able to influence planning permission - planning permission is important to stop everything devolving into a shit show.

Real estate taxed more? Yes.

Rental prices regulated? Yes, although this response isn't some unavoidable consequence of my previously stated position.

[Anonymous Coward]

ahh, you seem to be in love with private health insurance bureaucratic overhead, that works to deny your claims, which makes your health insurance worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Taxes and housing

congrats on the higher wage,

but remember unless your rich, your one medical emergency away from bankruptcy in trumpistan

and try not to go on vacation to sane countries, hard to keep that job when your shipped to el-salvador

[BlokeInTejas]

Re: Taxes and housing

Well, no. You're talking bullshit.

First, health insurance hasn't changed just because Trump was elected. The same laws services and prices were in effect when whoever was animating puppet Joe Biden was running the place. Second, if you're employed in a place in CA or elsewhere in the USA, your employer almost certainly offers low cost health insurance. So you are not 'one medical emergency from bankruptcy'

I diagnose a typical case of TDS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: one medical emergency from bankruptcy'

As long as you have that job then you are fine. Get laid off... like many will be in the forthcoming Depression and with the MAGA party going for Medicad, Medicare and Social Security, those bankrupcy rates will soon skyrocket especially in places where rents are $3K+ per month. Suddenly being laid off with no government social net (Musk has fired everyone dealing with new claims) you will be out on the streets in weeks.

That is not TDS. It is called facing the facts. I was there in SoCal in 2007/2008 and faced the same problems. Almost everyone living on my sub-division was foreclosed within months. I was renting as I was on an H1B visa. We left the USA three days after I was laid off. Our healthcare went bye-bye because the company filed for Chapter 7. Thankfully, we had been paying our NI contributions as our son was diagnosed with kidney failure shortly after we returned.

That caused us to never want to go back to the USA to work. Trump is leading the world into a depression that will rival the one of the 1930's but MAGA are blind to that. Only the oligarchs will survive

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Taxes and housing

because of your health care system don't really matter who's president (although biden was trying to help with medication costs)

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/medical-bankruptcies-by-country

it affects middle class as much as the poor.

so yes you are a medical emergency away from bankruptcy.

and orange turd concepts of a plan will make it worse

your TDS ("Trumpturd Dick Sucking") is always a tell.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Taxes and housing

"kill housing/mortgage "business" once and forever, so that workforce can easily find a place to live near business centers."

What are they going to live in? Tents? Or are the builders going to come and build houses free of charge from donated materials?

Mortgages enable people to buy houses to live in. Without money to pay builders there would be no houses. The houses are built by businesses who are prepared to invest money which they want to get back - with a profit - when the house is complete.

This system of investment of capital in return for a profit goes back to Sumerian times but we had to reinvent it in Europe in the Renaissance - it was an essential development that enabled us to move forward from the Middle Ages but every so often some numpty who hasn't realised that - not even able to see what's actually happening - wants to take us back there.

The organisation of what I believe the US calls the Savings and Loans, the Building Societies, owes its origins to progressive movements in the UK.

[Anonymous Coward]

> live in? Tents?

It is a matter of price for the same limited supply. Once tulips were too expensive too.

There is a comment to a video* explaining the problem pretty well: You buy property in London, you have 3-5 properties, a few you bought yourself, a few given to you by parents. That’s 10k pounds a month. 120k per year. That’s a decent salary that’ll probably last for a few generations. Give it all to your children and your family line will never need to work again.

Guess who is paying for the free-of-work life of their children? These non-working children only consume, do not produce, competing for the limited resources with those who work.

But it is unlike stocks or gold, because housing impacts everything**.

* https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tGPHcteG9dY

** https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/

[ChrisElvidge]

Euro tech

So why is the European flavour of Linux to be based on RedHat?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Euro tech

Which European flavour of Linux?

What's needed is for the various EU vendors to stop issuing statements and get down to producing and promoting an EU-based stack from server to desktop. All the bits are there but as long as their vendors are each doing their individual thing Microsoft can pick them off one at a time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Euro tech

https://eu-os.eu/

Its not actually been blessed by Queen Ursula. Still Fedora is an odd choice choice for a POC. They could have just used Astra Linux or openKylin.

Right now, EU OS is not a project of the European Union. Instead, EU OS is a community-led Proof-of-Concept.

Why does EU OS propose to rely on Fedora-based Linux distributions?

First of all, EU OS is not a product (yet), but only a Proof-of-Concept. The choice of Fedora-based Linux distributions or the desktop environment KDE is not a core concern as it does not impact much how admins manage users and their data, software and devices.

[Dan 55]

Re: Euro tech

Not even sure it's community-led, that seems to be some guy's website.

Back in the real world, I'd have thought the obvious choice would have been SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE.

[Peter2]

Re: Euro tech

Suse as it's based in Germany, or Ubuntu as Canonical is based in the UK would be the obvious choices.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Euro tech

It's some guy's personal project. The Linux world is full of them. It makes it a source of innovation which puzzles the Windows diehards mightily but wouldn't be an ideal basis. We went through this here a few days ago. There are several EU-based distros which are well-enough established but my personal choice would be Devuan (Belgian) from top to bottom as it removes dependence on systemd which would be too close to Microsoft when distancing the EU from it is a concern.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Euro tech

ITM?

[kmorwath]

Re: Euro tech

Because silly CIO want RHEL compatibility - because that what they think they need. Together systems admins who like vintage software. so they don't have to learn anything new.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Microsoft has met the letter of the law"

Which law? Where EU & US laws contradict each other it cannot meet both.

[fg_swe]

He who has the more weapons and soldiers makes the law. Not nice, but realistic.

[Doctor Syntax]

How about he who holds the territory? Want to do business in the EU, the UK, Canada, India, China, anywhere? Follow the local laws.

[fg_swe]

EU GDPR

For some funny reason, EU law can be avoided by California-Washington Corporations. They simply create a huge document, where they "justify" what they do and that is it. Google, MSFT, Apple, Facebook - all of them do whatever they please. EU politicans always bend over to them, why ?

The simple explanation is that the EU is impotent in military and security matters. They need the NSA warnings(which come from mining the California Data Mountains) to control a certain group of dangerous foreigners(which the current elite is keen on letting in in unlimited numbers). So Google will tell them to either suck it up or be denied NSA warnings. Then EU bends over.

[Tubz]

Does that include us Brits as European but only if we give you our fish stocks and billions to squander on white elephant projects and broken economies of countries like Spain and Greece, that Germany punished?

[Dan 55]

Spain's economy doesn't seem that broken.

[Anonymous Coward]

Economies of Spain and Greece did not simply brake. They had been weak, but not too bad. Then the mortgage pyramid ruined them in 2008.

The 2008 is likely to happen again soon. US is on the brink already. Too many poor people with housing the biggest cost.

China is indebted for decades from now. It hoped to escape a complete collapse by exporting its deflation, but Trump happened.

[Doctor Syntax]

The mortgage pyramid was largely a US & UK phenomenon. That eejit Brown was telling other countries that didn't join in that they should be more like us.

"China is indebted for decades from now."

Didn't you get the memo? The reason for all Trump's tariffs is that the US in indebted for decades to come, mostly to China.

[Anonymous Coward]

China is indebted internally. They dramatically overinvested in housing. Somebody has to pay, thus spend much less.

[fg_swe]

"indebted"

Please have a look of "gold in €" and you will see exponential inflation during the last 20 years. Same for $, ¥ and most other currencies.

https://www.gold.de/kurse/goldpreis/

So everybody creates new money out of nothing, as if it were Manna.

This is the easiest way to get out of difficult situations for incompetent politicians. Just start a new fire from freshly created money, even if it lasts only a few weeks.

As to the long-term effects, look at Japan, where young people can no longer afford to have a family. This type of monetary policy amounts to "managed suicide of a nation".

[Doctor Syntax]

Did you get the Brexit you wanted?

Unfortunately the UK economy isn't doing that well these days. It would be handy to have friction-free trade to give us a huge home market spanning most of a continent.

[Anonymous Coward]

When the EU was the EEC it was all about friction-free trade and the UK joined it.

The UK left it (for right or wrong) after it became a federation run by bureaucrats for bureaucrats - a completely different beast.

As with all such organisations, it is probably easier to fight it from within, but democracy (a free vote) took the UK out of the EU.

Anon. as it's politics

[tiggity]

Lack of democracy took the UK out of the EU.

The vote was non binding (an advisory vote).

However UK political parties did a cozy deal to treat it as a binding vote (a decision proven even more stupid* when the margin was small)

Also worth noting UK citizens who had been resident in Europe for many years were excluded from the vote & I guess how they would have voted)

*Had the margin been 60-40 (or more) then there would have been less complaints***, but treating an advisory vote as binding with a slim majority made all the politicians look like morons*, whatever party they were from

** Though, TBF, many people didn't think them the sharpest tools in the box before then, but underestimating the desire of some of the public to piss off the "establishment" and the horrendous amount of racism that exists amongst some parts of the UK population (generally is hidden beneath the surface, but always looking for a no jail sentence way to be expressed)

*** though Scotland especially might still have companied, as although different UK regions have their own assemblies with some limited powers, the overall vote was deciding factor. In Scotland vote was 62: 38 in favour of remain, NI**** a lower remain majority 56:44: So the disenfranchisement of the pro remain regions was another poor move by the politicians.

**** Who knows, in years to come that may seen as a contributory factory in creation of a united Ireland (yes, I know it's a long shot, but far more likely than it was last century)

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

In the days before the vote, Brexiteer In Chief Nigel Farage stated "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it"

So why was a narrower margin of victory for leave not treated as "unfinished business"? Farage went on to say that a narrow win for Remain would lead to a second vote, but according to Brexit favouring voters, that would be undemocratic and against the will of the people.

It's long past time for the second vote that Farage promised us.

[EvilDrSmith]

"The vote was non binding (an advisory vote)."

As I posted quite recently, the UK government sent a leaflet to every household in the country at the start of the referendum campaign period; the leaflet was also widely available from e.g. libraries, and online.

Everyone received it, or, at least, if they were aware of the referendum, would have been aware of the leaflet.

It made the government case specifically for voting remain.

It also stated:

"This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide."

No ifs, buts or maybes. No exceptions or qualifiers. A clear, absolute promise. The winning result gets implemented.

It may have been advisory by strict application of the law. However, democracy is something more than just strict application of the law.

It was binding, because the government were explicitly clear beforehand that they would implement the result - would be bound by it.

To break that promise would have undermined whatever trust may exist between government and governed.

[Anonymous Coward]

> The UK left it (for right or wrong) after it became a federation run by bureaucrats for bureaucrats - a completely different beast.

Your pretence at being non-partisan on the issue is revealed by your use of the word "bureaucrats". A pretty poor effort - you didn't even make it to the end of the sentence.

Number of bureaucrats in government:

EU: 33,000

UK: 400,000

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you look into the issue of "fish stocks", rather than relying on right wing red tops.

Look at how things went after Brexit. Turns out it wasn't those evil Europeans that were causing the decline of the UK fishing industry.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/explainer-fisheries/

[may_i]

It's already too late!

> Just a swipe of the pen in the White House could force US tech giants to disclose all manner of data, some of which might have privacy or commercial implications.

The US Cloud Act (enacted in 2018) already means that the data you store in a US supplier's cloud (even if physically located in the EU) is fair game for US authorities.

Far too many EU organisations have been quietly ignoring this fact since the law was enacted while claiming that their use of US cloud infrastructure is compatible with the GDPR. It isn't.

[Alumoi]

Re: It's already too late!

Forget the cloud, Windows as an OS is not compatible with GDPR. I'm not talking about Apple OS as I don't know squat about it, but as long as the OS has telemetry baked into its core, it's not compatible with GDPR.

[fg_swe]

Personal IT Airbus Self Made, GDPR Compliant

Even though it is not perfect, what we can do today is:

1.) Tuxedo laptop for work. Ubuntu or SuSE OS. https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

2.) Private Cloud storage next to DSL modem on an RPI4. File transfer using ssh/scp.

3.) Private homepage on the RPI4, using DynDNS adressing.

4.) DeltaChat messaging

5.) qwant search engine

6.) PeerTube Video sharing

7.) Hetzner, OVH servers, if needed for performance. Starts at 5€/month

8.) Local Unix User group as a place to learn and connect.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Personal IT Airbus Self Made, GDPR Compliant

Along the same lines laptop from PC Spcialist with Devuan, private cloud using WebDav (including CalDav) for file transfer - on a Pi next to the DSL, obviously, again using Devuan. Mail via personal domain hosted by Mythic Beasts - POP3 so nothing left on the server.

[SundogUK]

Re: It's already too late!

Which clause in the GDPR is it not compatible with?

[ecofeco]

I've said it before

Europe needs to do whatever it takes to distance itself from the U.S. as much as it can as quickly as possible.

Stability and law equality are not coming back to the U.S. for a long, long time.

[fg_swe]

Really ?

The EU is hellbent on CISA-style censorship, which the Americans have already dumped again.

Because if you suppress the opposition's voice, paradise comes along. Proven by Cuba and Venezuela !

[TheMaskedMan]

"European biz calls for Euro tech for local people"

Or, "This is a local shop, for local people. There's nothing for you here!"

Can't say I blame them, given Trump's antics. Who would want to trade with, much less rely on such a capricious Muppet? It surely won't be long before the rest of the world starts to work around the US rather than with it.

That said, this is the EU we're talking about here. It will take years to talk about it, more years to wrap their ideas in red tape, and then yet more to try to execute on them, by which the Orange Asshole will be long gone. But, in theory at least, it's a good idea.

[Doctor Syntax]

The capricious Muppet isn't a very good argument for rapid decision making. A measured response would be better than flip-flopping to follow his latest brain-farts. Let him wreck the US economy without giving him excuses to blame someone else then take a look at how things stand and make long term plans that don't rely on doing much trade with a failed state across the Atlantic.

[Ordinary Donkey]

UEFI

Is it true that UEFI secure boot standard means that an American company has the final say over what is allowed to boot on any PC with it enabled? And that there is a lot of pressure for hardware to prevent people from turning it off?

I'm never sure about these things but you'd think people would be discussing that right now.

[fg_swe]

Fujitsu SPARC and ARM

Last time I checked, they were quite competitive in terms of horsepower.

The japanese have great respect for us. They work with Britain and Italy on the nextgen fighter.

Why not also work with them in computers ? Much deeper than Fujtsu-ICL already does.

[fg_swe]

Re: Fujitsu SPARC and ARM

https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/servers/supercomputer/specifications/

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: UEFI

It's something that ought to have been addressed long ago with proper governance in place.

[doublelayer]

Re: UEFI

"Is it true that UEFI secure boot standard means that an American company has the final say over what is allowed to boot on any PC with it enabled?"

Depending on how you want to look at it, you could claim that, but it is not the clearest or truest way to describe the situation. Lots of open source bootloaders have signatures allowing them to boot, and those are not checked against some database when they're tried. If the companies that can sign them all decided they'd never sign something again, all those things would continue to boot as normal and any other system would just have to include any one of them as a first stage to work without difficulty.

"And that there is a lot of pressure for hardware to prevent people from turning it off?"

That one is much easier: no, there isn't. Several manufacturers turn it off by default. Those who have it on by default still provide a simple switch in BIOS settings that turns it off. If the situation I described happened and you wanted to boot something that wasn't signed, you can turn it off in about ten seconds and go on your way.

[fg_swe]

IT Airbus

Like the Airbus project, we need a cooperation to finance, develop, organize, market, support and sell European IT products.

Here are some of my ideas, though not a complete plan:

https://di-fg.de/IT_Airbus.html

Airbus could indeed be the blueprint of this effort, as it is hugely successful. 50% market share and leader in technology and quality !

What is missing is the California-style Risk Financing. We need competent financiers who decide about which project/company is funded. The "IT-Airbus" company could provide the organizational structure to do this. But where is the Franz-Josef Strauß, the Georges Pompidou and the General de Gaulle to be the drivers behind this ? Midgets like Ursula wont cut it. Neither does the authoritarian Breton.

Regarding the "free market" argument - the US DOD/Government has been behind(as an early investor) almost ALL California companies such as Google, Facebook, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard etc.

[fg_swe]

Commercial IT Airbus

1.) Fujitsu computers such as the BS2000 mainframes out of Munich, ARM- and SPARC-based servers. At least partially European CPUs !

https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/servers/unix/sparc/

2.) Hetzner, OVH, T-Systems,... as truly European Cloud Providers

3.) Tuxedo client computers. Soon with ARM CPU ? https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/de/In-den-Medien-TUXEDO-Prototyp-mit-ARM-Chipsatz-von-Qualcomm.tuxedo

4.) Local Linux User Groups as Talent Pool for admins, developers and consultants

5.) CompCert proven correct Compiler

6.) SeL4 high security, proven correct OS

7.) MaxDB out of Germany

8.) OnlyOffice

9.)

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Commercial IT Airbus

LibreOffice and NextCloud, both based in Germany. Ditto KDE. Also Suse and Devuan top to bottom EU based distros, Mint and Zorin desktop distros. The bits are there. What's needed is for them to get together and start promoting them as a whole.

I'm not persuaded about user groups as a major source of support. I don't know what things are like in the EU these days but I know it used to be a good freelance market which would be a professional alternative.

[fg_swe]

LUGs

LUGs are one place to obtain Linux knowledge and support(especially for private Linux users), but surely there are lots of freelance engineers around whom you can find via the freelance search engines.

LUGs are probably just the gateway into the FOSS world.

[fg_swe]

GendBuntu - Gendarmerie Nationale with 73 000 seats

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

Sometimes you have to salute to the french for their stubborness.

[Will Godfrey]

Re: GendBuntu - Gendarmerie Nationale with 73 000 seats

Interesting, and well done for sticking with this. I wonder just how much they are saving.