IMHO (In My Humble Opinion): It shouldn't be "Getting of US-Tech", it should be "Getting of proprietary tech".

@jwildeboer

If you can't manage your own data, you're locked in.
If you can't have access to the software processing your data, you're locked in.
If you can't access you're data due to the data being stored in a service which is down or has blocked your access, you're locked in.

It's as easy as that. Don't put your data in a place where you can't access it when you need it.

Open standards avoid this, your data format is documented and there are more implementations of parsers

It starts with open standards, as then there are less reasons to protect the software inside a proprietary blackbox.

Open source and free/libre software is the natural extension of open standards.

@jwildeboer I don’t think that’s the way to do it, or the result will be ignoring actual good apps out there whilst having to suffer obtuse ugly inconsistent undocumented programmes which are just more difficult and infuriating to use.

I would far prefer having a proper organisation behind an app or a programme, with funding and continuity. So many open source amateur apprentice-piece programmes just stop halfway and never progress, and then years later, they’ve gone altogether, or they’re no longer able to function on a by-then new computer, or the people involved in it have gone somewhere else or got jobs that pay better so there’s no time to devote to their hobby, or they get families, or they die. Open source is risky in that respect, there’s no professionalism or continuity or adherence to norms or even in some cases clear ideas about the area that people who use the thing or how they actually do their work (it’s usually just a guess by the person making the programme and they didn’t spend more than 10 minutes satisfying themselves that they’ve fully explored the scope of it all).

The risk with commercial programmes is that they company will get bought out by another adversarial company with other ideas about the proper benefit of the product to the world at large (ie it becomes nothing but an income stream). Another risk is that the company themselves will lose sight of the same, and do the same.

I think the best solution is to have proper governmental involvement in making available the more necessary and fundamental programmes and suites, so for eg the EU (or other trading blocs) could be responsible for the governance, direction, funding and distribution of what would otherwise be open source programmes. It’d be like a space programme, how ESA sends up stuff to orbit for science, but it’d be for people on the ground. That sort of structure. That’s what I think,

@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

Unfortunately #OpenSource is #US controlled anyway.

We can hope to sneak some patch in, as with #xzutils, but there's no way to make #Chromium or #Android development "sovereign".
Try hard fork them.

Same for "open standards": what if a standard (#QUIC?) only serves the need of US #BigTech #hyperscalers and surveillance (0-RTT?)

Then sure, while getting rid of US Tech it would be wise to get rid of proprietary software too.

But #DigitalSovereignty is about breaking free of an evil empire.

@gugurumbe@mastouille.fr

Just a gentle reminder that #Chromium, #Android, #Kubernetes and even Microsoft #DotNet are distributed under #OpenSource licenses.

Good luck at turing their evolution to an "international cooperation".

Unless #NATO is your model of such "cooperation", btw.

@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

@giacomo @gugurumbe @jwildeboer

Open source "VS Code" with its policy of "extensions are only for official, Microsoft provided, version of VSCode in a legal way" is also great point of that.

BTW OpenJDK is also somewhere near as i think...

@giacomo

If you're concerned about the US controlling open source - you can fork it. But a fork won't be successful if it doesn't have users and contributors.

Remember OpenOffice.org? What do you think people talk more about - that one or the fork LibreOffice?

Android has forks as well. The main problem with Android isn't the problems forking the OS itself. It's the Google Play layers, which is not open source and fully controlled by Google - which way too many apps depends on, making it much harder to break free from Google's Android implementation.

You are equally not forced to use or implement protocols you don't deem needed in your own code. Use the alternatives, HTTP is well established and can do most of what QUIC can do. And the HTTP standard can also be extended and improved.

Protocols not being based on open standards - they are a pain to support outside of its origin software stack. Reverse engineering is the only viable path if there are no other open alternatives available.

So open source and open standards can help you break free of evil empires; the capability of digital sovereignty is built into open source and open standards.

@jwildeboer

@u0421793 @jwildeboer "there’s no professionalism or continuity" Depends doesn't it? Some open source is remarkably professional and dependable. Often the difference between that and an "amateur apprentice-piece" is just funding for a developer to make a living. Meanwhile commercial software getting bought out/sidelined/price-hiked, it not just a risk. Sometimes it feels inevitable! You have to weigh these things up, but I'd love to see governments tending more towards supporting open source.

@jwildeboer

Good point.
It would be a shame when US companies with good intentions, such as framework, pebble, or ifixit would be penalised as part of this movement.

(And this is just a highly subjective selection of companies)

@dazo@infosec.exchange

If you're concerned about the US controlling open source - you can fork it.

This is a naive take: above a certain complexity, hard forks of a software is not licensing issue. So while you can legally fork #Chromium, nobody can really hope of doing so in any meaningful way.

#WHATWG standards are dictated by the most used browsers, that are all US controlled anyway. And that's why it's such a monoculture, with #Firefox there only to provide a little #antitrust warranty to #Google: the standard themselves are designed to work as entry barriers to the browser market.

So again, open standards do not provide #DigitalSovereignty by themselves.

Open source and open standards only work in this regards whene there are several independent implementation from each country, so that there is no way to lock-in users, companies and countries' administrarions.

Without existing, multiple alternative, independent and fully interoperable implementations, open standards just reinforce centralization as Google proved when even #Microsoft abandoned their browser engine.

Then sure, #FreeSoftware helps with Digital #Sovereignty, since (and as long) people's #freedom is its primary concern.

But it's important to not conflate individual freedom and autonomy with digital sovereignty!

If all of your country payments are handled by US corporations, you might well use #GNU/#Hurd on your open hardware, but you are not free and your country has no sovereignty.

If all of your health data are stored by US corporations, they might well only use free software on open hardware located in your neighbourhood, but they are alware at a ssh of distance from #NSA, so you are not free and your country has no sovereignty.

What about your judges or your lawmakers exchanging unencrypted emails over #gmail or #outlook365?
Again, they can use opensource only, but you are not free, your country has no sovereignty and your vote is worth nothing.

So sure, after getting rid of US Tech we might even move to a #FOSS only stack EU-wide.

But first and foremost we need to break free from US control and surveillance.

Some opensource projects may help to ackieve this urgent goal.
Biggest ones won't and we shouldn't naively argue that going full opensource is per se useful or required to gain #DigitalSovereignty.

@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

@giacomo

And all of this starts with the data itself. It is the data you want to access which has the real value. Data you should own from the beginning.

If the data is in an open standard format, there is a possibility to break free.

If you cannot control the data, there are no baseline for digital sovereignty. If you cannot have access to software being able to make use of the data in a meaningful way for you, there are no baseline for digital sovereignty. If the software cannot be written, because the data format is unknown or too closely tied to the service provider generating the data, there are no baseline to achieve digital sovereignty.

With open standards, there can be built open source software using those open standards. Thus, you can decode and extract meaningful information from the data.

There are also no requirements anywhere that there must be more implementations for open source project from more countries. They key point is that source code must be open and available for all. That takes away the chances of someone talking full control of the software and restricting the freedom otherwise possible. Without a source code available, the path to extracting meaningful information ends up incredibly hard.

Open sourced software is one piece of the digital sovereignty puzzle, data in an open standard is another piece in the same puzzle.

Having access to the data files containing your information is yet another piece in the same puzzle. You cannot achieve digital sovereignty without all of these three pieces;then someone will still have control of your information.

Likewise, if you use a service with a proprietary API - you are bound to that service as long as that service uses the same API. If more service providers provide the same standardised API, you can more easily switch between services. Again, open standards is a key component for digital sovereignty - otherwise you will not be able to process your data as you want.

@jwildeboer