It's especially funny that Microsoft has been swearing up and down that they can offer "sovereign" infrastructure in Europe, and yet the moment Trump comes calling they trip over themselves to implement his sanctions against the ICC.
I'd love to hear from any US company that makes such a claim, how they will deal if forced by their government to comply due to the patriot act.
In the end the question is very simple, aside from the rare idealist company all companies seek to earn money. How big of a hit would they be willing to take to defend the rights of their foreign customers?
As a European by this point I find US companies about as trustworthy as Chinese ones, if not more so. With Chinese companies you have the Chinese government as a potential attacker. With US companies you have the US government as a potential attacker. Both is bad, but with US companies I feel that they also have a higher tendency to fuck you over as the customer or to change the deal after the fact. Sure usually they should respect EU law when doing business in theEU, but how well is that working out?
People are tired of 25 years of European stories about this and that government branch or municipality switching away from Microsoft lock in to some open source solutions, and then coming back again, etc.
Stick with it for five (5) years consistently, then report on it.
In many cases when a government branch or municipality switches away from Microsoft, Microsoft throws money at the government branch or municipality.
For example, When Munich in 2013 migrated to Linux:
"In 2016, Microsoft relocated its German headquarters to Munich. "
"In 2018, journalistic group Investigate Europe released a video documentary via German public television network ARD that claimed that the majority of city workers were satisfied with the operating system, with council members insinuating that the reversal was a personally motivated decision by mayor Dieter Reiter. Reiter denied that he had initiated the reversal in gratitude for Microsoft moving its German headquarters from Unterschleißheim back to Munich."
The harsh reality is that projects like ffmpeg and SQLite are wild exceptions to the rule. You need more than a handful of well engineered OSS components to run a complicated business like this.
It's possibly part of the effort to push it so it sticks, else you may have people asking themselves why the government is relying on freeware instead of professionally made software, thinking it's just cheapening out. Open source may not have the good rep it has here, outside of these circles.
I don't think I've ever seen an article here of that happening? I wouldn't be surprised if it goes but I think showing the effects now instead of in 5 years is helpful.
In the end the question is very simple, aside from the rare idealist company all companies seek to earn money. How big of a hit would they be willing to take to defend the rights of their foreign customers?
As a European by this point I find US companies about as trustworthy as Chinese ones, if not more so. With Chinese companies you have the Chinese government as a potential attacker. With US companies you have the US government as a potential attacker. Both is bad, but with US companies I feel that they also have a higher tendency to fuck you over as the customer or to change the deal after the fact. Sure usually they should respect EU law when doing business in theEU, but how well is that working out?
Stick with it for five (5) years consistently, then report on it.
For example, When Munich in 2013 migrated to Linux:
"In 2016, Microsoft relocated its German headquarters to Munich. "
"In 2018, journalistic group Investigate Europe released a video documentary via German public television network ARD that claimed that the majority of city workers were satisfied with the operating system, with council members insinuating that the reversal was a personally motivated decision by mayor Dieter Reiter. Reiter denied that he had initiated the reversal in gratitude for Microsoft moving its German headquarters from Unterschleißheim back to Munich."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
There would be very little to talk about.
The harsh reality is that projects like ffmpeg and SQLite are wild exceptions to the rule. You need more than a handful of well engineered OSS components to run a complicated business like this.