SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
One topic dominated the recent 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe, and it wasn't AI:
Unlike any tech conference I've attended in the last few years, the top issue at the 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe at the École Polytechnique Paris was not AI. Shocking, I know. Indeed, OpenInfra Foundation general manager Thierry Carrez commented, "Did you notice what I didn't talk about in my keynote? I made no mention of AI." But one issue that did appear -- and would show up over and over again in the keynotes, the halls, and the vendor booths -- was digital sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty is the ability of a country, organization, or individual to control its own digital infrastructure, technologies, data, and online processes without undue external dependency on foreign entities or large technology companies. In other words, Europeans are tired of relying on what they see as increasingly unreliable American companies and the US government.
Carrez explained: "We've seen old alliances between the US and the EU being questioned or leveraged for immediate gains. We have seen the very terms of exchange of goods changing almost every day. And as a response to that, in Europe, we're moving to digital sovereignty." That shift, in turn, means open-source software.
"The world needs sovereign, high-performance and sustainable infrastructure," continued Carrez, "that remains interoperable and secure, while collaborating tightly with AI, containers and trusted execution environments. Open infrastructure allows nations and organizations to maintain control over their applications, their data, and their destiny while benefiting from global collaboration."
Carrez thinks a better word for what Europe wants is not isolation from the US: "What we're really looking for is resilience. What we want for our countries, for our companies, for ourselves, is resilience. Resilience in the face of unforeseen events in a fast-changing world. Open source," he concluded, "allows us to be sovereign without being isolated."
[...] To make life easier for users -- and to turn a profit, naturally -- many European companies are now offering technology programs to help users achieve digital sovereignty. These programs include Deutsche Telekom, with its Open Telekom Cloud, and OVH, STACKIT, and VanillaCore. Each of these companies relies on OpenStack to power its European-based cloud offerings for individuals, companies, and governments. In addition, other European open-source-based tech businesses, such as SUSE and NextCloud, offer digital sovereignty solutions using other programs.
In conversations at the conference, it became clear that while the changes in American government policy have been worrying Europeans, it's not just politics that has them concerned. People are also upset about Microsoft's 365 price increases. Another tech business issue that's unnerved them is Broadcom's acquisition of VMware and its subsequent massive price increases. This has led to a rise in the use of open-source office software, such as LibreOffice, and its web-based brother, Collabora Online, and the migration of VMware customers to OpenStack-based services.
The sovereignty issue is not going to go away. As Carrez said in a press conference: "It's extremely top of mind in the EU right now, it's what everyone is just talking about, and it's what everybody is doing." Open source is essential to this movement. As Mike McDonough, head of software product management for Catchengo, a "sovereign by design" cloud company, said: "No one can lock you up; no one can take it away from you, and if someone decides to fork the code, you can continue adopting it anywhere in the world."
All in all, participants agreed that Europe's sovereign cloud movement is reaching critical mass as governments and enterprises move data back from the US-based hyperscalers. European organizations are realizing they need more private infrastructure capacity and local talent to run big cloud initiatives. So, they're turning to open source because, as Carrez concluded, "what makes us resilient is our open-source community."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by cyberthanasis on Saturday October 25, @01:54PM
Disregarding the rants of American FOSS supporters*, who should really be happy if Europe or Australia or China converted to FOSS software, but evidently they are not (see previous comments), I have not seen a push for FOSS software in my EU country.
On the contrary, at the university that I work for, I see is a push for MS Windoze, MS Office, even MS outlook. And a push for Matlab, AutoCAD and even Photoshop.
At the university we had an IT manager who was a FOSS supporter, and used LTSP with Ubuntu for the campus PC-laboratories, not only because it is FOSS, but because it is far more manageable than a Windoze solution. We never had a problem, outside some hardware failures on the client PCs. Unfortunately the manager passed away, and immediately began the pressure to install Windoze. In only one semester, Windoze was installed in all the PCs of the laboratories, along with MS-office and AutoCAD and Matlab. Now, less than half of the PCs work, due to the lack of personnel to do extensive maintenance needed by Windoze and like.
There is even pressure to use MS-Email services, when we have had our own mail server for decades.
When I tried to tell the students to use LibreOffice and that I will not accept reports in docx/xlsx/pptx format (as a matter of principle), I was told to reverse my decision. When I tried to tell them that the students are poor and LibreOffice is free (as in beer – most professors do nor really understand what Free software means or care about it), I was told that the university pays MS for a campus license, but magnanimously I could personally use LibreOffice if I wish so. The same about Matlab and the same about AutoCAD.
So please me count me skeptical about FOSS in EU.
* I have not installed openstack, and certainly I have not admined it, but I am the user of VM built/maintained by openstack at the university. I run a small HTTP service which grades student’s exercises. I never had a problem in 3 years. YMMV.
* I also worry about DNS services in EU, but I think the money is in the user applications, and I think that using FOSS applications (in Linux) is a huge win.
* I strongly believe that the users’ applications should run locally in the users’ computers, and not in in someone else’s computer in the cloud (obviously except web pages and the like). Likewise about the users’ data.