"Quite the problem, sighed the EU's 2024 Draghi Report on European competitiveness. Those regulations regressively hit startups and SMEs the hardest, there's no central capital market for funding innovation, while Uncle Sam's wallet opens wide for the ambitious and talented. It looked bad in 2024, when tech deficit was primarily an economic matter. Mix in the changes since then, and you can apply the five word aversion of all Russian history - "And then it got worse.""
"Which is why the EU is now eagerly looking to open source as part of digital decolonization. It wants to end dependency on American software and services, not just for a healthier and more influential home sector, but to protect itself from hostile leverage. The EU being the way it is, it wants to think big, and there's no doubt that FOSS has an infinite appetite for resources and relevance."
"It's just that you couldn't find a bigger culture clash between top-down and bottom-up if you invested a billion euros on a 27-nation research project. Finding the sweet spot where EU involvement can make the biggest difference to FOSS enterprise adoption, while maintaining the essential spark of agility and freedom that brings FOSS alive, that's where technical, economic and cultural engineering needs to happen. Fast."
European regulations have constrained the scale and competitiveness of the tech sector, disproportionately affecting startups and SMEs and leaving no central capital market for innovation funding. US public and private capital advantages amplify the continent's tech deficit. The EU is pursuing open source as digital decolonization to end dependency on American software and reduce exposure to hostile leverage. FOSS attracts resources but largely sits outside regulatory frameworks that protect citizens from systematic abuse. A substantial culture clash exists between EU top-down interventions and FOSS's bottom-up ethos, requiring rapid technical, economic and cultural engineering to enable enterprise adoption without killing FOSS agility. Linux remains the dominant force in European open source.
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