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Dutch Parliament Calls For End To Dependence On US Software Companies (yahoo.com) 53

Posted by BeauHD from the changing-relations dept.
The Dutch parliament approved motions urging the government to reduce reliance on U.S. software companies by developing a sovereign cloud platform and reconsidering contracts with American firms. Reuters reports: While such initiatives have foundered in the past due to a lack of viable European alternatives, lawmakers said changing relations with the United States under the presidency of Donald Trump have given the issue fresh urgency. "The question we as Europeans must ask ourselves is: do we feel comfortable with people like Trump, (Meta CEO Mark) Zuckerberg and (X owner Elon) Musk ruling over our data?" said Marieke Koekkoek of the pro-European Volt party, who authored one of the eight motions, in an email to Reuters.

In addition to launching a sovereign cloud services platform, the motions called on the government to re-examine a decision to use Amazon's web services for the Netherlands' internet domain hosting, and to develop alternatives to U.S. software and preferential treatment for European firms in public tenders. [...] Bert Hubert, a Dutch technology expert who has advocated for reducing dependency on the U.S., said: "This is only the first step in potentially doing something." But he said one important outcome would be forcing agencies to publicly report on risks related to their reliance on U.S. cloud firms. "With the advent of Trump 2.0, it has become clear that this is not something you can harmlessly sign off on," he said.

Dutch Parliament Calls For End To Dependence On US Software Companies More | Reply

Dutch Parliament Calls For End To Dependence On US Software Companies

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  • Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @05:36PM (#65243399) Homepage

    Every democracy needs to minimize its dependency on US software and services for critical infrastructure or sensitive data. This is a matter of national security.

    • The funny part is they are doing Trumps same argument for tariffs. Do want to be dependent on countries like China for anything we depend on or is vital to us? And the answer for all countries should be 'no'. They really shouldn't depend on us. We have our own interests in mind.

      • That's not an argument for tariffs - it's simply an argument for developing home-grown industries in critical areas. You still need to prove that tariffs, which are financially regressive in nature, are the correct way to get to that point - versus having the government use tax revenue to subsidize critical industries to ensure they are viable.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by trip23 ( 727132 )
          It's also about: Can you trust your partner in having similar values. The U.S. is shitting on their allies who believed in "western democracy"

    • I tend to root for the democracies... but ANY country that cares about its security should have its own OS (even if it's just its own Linux fork), hosting platforms, and social media.

      If Amazon, Google, or Microsoft are your provider, you are under Donald's thumb... but regardless of current politics, I wouldn't expect the US to throw all its IT infrastructure to another nation either. It's just not a wise move.

      • ... but ANY country that cares about its security should have its own OS (even if it's just its own Linux fork), hosting platforms, and social media...

        Could you put a price on that? Include (a) development, (b) software maintenance/evolution, including keeping up with the US Big Tech companies as they produce new functionality (e.g. LLMs or other AI/Machine Learning); (c) hardware. How many billion Euros would that cost, both initial cost and sustainment? And would NL accept a Europe-wide alternative, or would it insist on its national systems? How would NL or EU recover those costs? Would each citizen be required to pay for a subscription to NL-OS,

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Teun ( 17872 )
          It is a fairly simple calculation, what would the cost be when the present dependency on US services goes sour?

        • The answer is you don't have to develop it at all. You don't have to develop linux to use it. Countries can work together to develop software like an OS or AI, the thing is they should require it to be open source and if things go sour have the relatively easy task of continuing. Its like the right to repair but on a national level, if a company can't provide you with enough information to maintain the software/equipment then it should never be used for anything essential to the country.

      • What might be better would be a Bog standard distribution that everyone vets and scans for security issues. Could be Debian or something in common use. From there, it could just be used directly, or maybe a country could make a downstream of it if they so chose. This way the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented all the time.

        • ... vets and scans for security ... One does that to the compiler source code too. The point of source code is, everyone can check it and build it with their own tools. One should start with a very old compiler binary as the path to iteratively self-building a modern compiler.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        The problem is in a democracy, there are lots of well funded corporate arse lickers who would fight that, and sometimes they win elections.

    • Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @05:48PM (#65243433)

      Every country needs to minimize its dependency on foreign software and services for critical infrastructure or sensitive data. This is a matter of national security.

      There, fixed it for you. The US has Chinese hackers in the water and power systems, and the routers are phoning Beijing too. Then there was the Chinese virus in the firmware of some mini-PC fussy last year. Globalization turnout to be pennywise and pound foolish.

      • Hell, we have H1-B engineers that walk straight off the plane from China into sensitive software engineering roles. If they can pass a software engineering interview, we give them jobs. Why hack infrastructure from outside a company when you can hack it with official accounts and passwords from within a company?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nugoo ( 1794744 )
        To the best of my knowledge, China has not recently threatened to annex any European territories. The same cannot be said of the US. While I don't think China is particularly trustworthy, I do think the US is materially less trustworthy these days.

    • Every country need to strike a balance between reliance on every other country and cooperation. Having critical infrastructure depend something outside your control is a security risk. That is one of the reasons why I so dislike intellectual property laws, if we limit even the ability to use ideas then if things go downhill then we are all screwed. In times of real crisis every country will put themselves first, so we should have a backup even at the cost of some efficiency.

      I don't know how any country does

    • It's funny how those places don't have any large it companies that have developed such services and compete in the open market place.

      Why is that?

  • Trumpâ(TM)s jackassing could be what makes the year of the Linux desktop happen, just that it happens everywhere other than the USA
    • I read that somewhere else recently ! : https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23635399&cid=65232617

  • Folks, this is just my opinion so accord me some "slack" If I may add...

    Think about this: -

    A continent with comparable GDP as the US...

    ...allows the USA to "control" its online content...

    ...allows proprietary file formats to "rule" content they produce...

    ...ignores capable open source applications even when they can be used as substitutes...

    Heck, I can't think of a European based Word Processor, Database application or streaming service! This is not to say these do not exist...The European governments

    • I can't think of a European based Word Processor, Database application or streaming service! This is not to say these do not exist...

      I don't know database applications, but I can help with the others:
      * libreoffice initially started as StarOffice (Star Division, Lünerburg, Germany, 1985). The binary is still "soffice.bin". The Document Foundation, which oversees LibreOffice, is based in Berlin.
      * Calligra (Koffice fork) started at and hosted by KDE. The non-profit which oversees KDE development is based in Berlin. Major supporters of KDE are two companies based in Germany: Blue Systems (also sponsors of Kubuntu) and SuSE.
      * streaming:

    • Think about this...They are all happy to be in the F35 program even when the USA can dictate the who/when/how/why these planes can be used!

      You indeed point at an important point of contention here. Sweden, France, Spain, Germany (and UK) manufacture their own fighter jets, and will also merge their efforts into their next-gen fighter jet (FCAS) due to fly in 2040. Some also manufacture helicopters, interceptor missiles, etc. All those get irritated when EU countries choose offers from foreign--even if allied-- partners, instead of investing it into the EU defence industry research and production.

    • Things can turn on a dime. Give enough money, and the EU can fork and have their own office suite in no time at all. The EU can easily fork a Linux distro and make it into their own.

      Give the will and the money, one can do almost anything. An office suite competing with MS may not be something thought of now, but give it an effort, and in 1-2 years, the EU may have something that will be light-years ahead.

      It is a matter of "won't", rather than "can't".

      • When have you ever seen a government or large organization turn on a dime? There will be at least 6 months of meetings and consolation before they even think about acting. If windows stops working tomorrow it will be a lot of work to even get the data. Moving to Libre office will take time there are compatibility issues, all the people will have to be retrained. Money cannot solve this problem it will take time no matter how much money you have. If you are learning and you want to learn me giving you an ex

  • Didn't the U.K. many years ago, try to ditch Microsoft Office for Open Office?

    But then, some time ago they rolled that back if I remember right.

    It's really, really hard to consider software not developed in the U.S. because software development keeps accelerating. Even if you were going to ditch Microsoft Office, the next viable alternative for an organization of any reasonable size is - Google Office!

    • There's a solution:

      [European] governments could combine efforts and buy software like Corel WordPerfect including all its patents, then use it as they see fit.

      It's a very capable office suite that would give MS Office a run for its money.

      They prefer to put resources in inconsequential efforts like that war in the east of the continent. Sad!

      • "inconsequential efforts like that war in the east of the continent."

        Tell us you're paid by Putin's thugs without...

        • Dude, where have you been all this long?

          The frontline has been moving westward albeit slowly since the beginning, huh!

          The only fella who has smelled the coffee is the current White House occupant, who is trying his best to reduce losses to you know who...

          I do not know why people fail/refuse to see what is [so] obvious...

          Why?

          • Because Russia is not part of the civilized world, and it's also more likely the US will leave than Russia will join.

    • Nothing to do with it. No one is talking desktop software, they are talking about cloud dependence. And since you want to run the "it's been tried" line why look to examples of UK incompetence rather than examples of German success? Brexit means Brexit so if you want to talk about the EU doing something then you should look to EU examples, some so successful that governments even managed their own custom Linux distro.

      But can you give an example of UK rolling back on grounds other than Microsoft coming with

      • I've wondered if it might be good for countries to run their own national cloud providers. They could be run directly or contracted out. Either way, this would guarantee data wouldn't leak outside the borders, and ensures that data can't easily be moved. Plus, it will earn business when other, international companies want to store data with that country's cloud provider just for sake of redundancy.

        • All the cloud providers already have sites in different jurisdictions for these reasons. Not sure how effective it is, but a lot of it is due to regulation.

  • this theme resonates across the EU now and besides security, it's about money. Many feel we de facto sponsor the US firms' R&D while suffering from underfunded R&D at home...
  • It's not just reliance on software services that are thanks to MAGA held against the light outside the US.
    For many years we Europeans had a great trust in US friendship even though we also worried about the US lackadaisical attitude to privacy.
    But the first days and weeks of the Trump administration have put a huge dent in this friendship.
    Just another example, Trump is playing the Putin/Xi book by threatening to overtake Danish Island of Greenland, naturally the Danes are rather upset about the idea and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      There's a similar grassroots movement in Canada. And our government is reviewing its purchase of F-35 fighters. We've already paid for 16 of them, so we're kind of stuck. If I were in charge, though, I'd cancel the orders for the rest and sell the 16 F-35s to someone who already has them in its fleet and can make use of them.

      • Your government tried for years to buy a different plane, but no plane currently in production could do what your military needed. You ended up buying the only one available that fulfilled the mission.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dskoll ( 99328 )

          The situation has now changed, though. The F-35's stealth capability is no longer so awesome because newer radars can detect it, and more importantly, the best plane on Earth is no good if you can't trust the supplier... without maintenance and spare parts, the F-35 quickly becomes useless.

          Sweden produces some pretty decent planes that might be a better choice given the current geopolitical situation.

    • Sounds a lot like what is happening in Canada.

  • You'll need to take Azure and AWS out of the dead web weenies hands.

  • The population of the Netherlands is well under 20 million. Develop an alternative to AWS and other established clouds just for internal consumption? Not likely but they can team up with the rest of the EU.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      The Netherlands has a well-deserved reputation for fantastic engineering. They have also produced amazing computer scientists (Dijkstra, van Rossum). I think if any nation has a shot at this, The Netherlands does.

      Many years ago, I ran an email security company and we had clients all over the world. By a very large margin, our Dutch clients were the most competent.

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