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Dutch Parliament Calls For End To Dependence On US Software Companies (yahoo.com) 103

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 haven't noticed that US allies particularly believe in western democracy, based on actions in the EU these days.

    • 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.

      • 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:5, 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:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Nugoo ( 1794744 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @10:21PM (#65244071)
        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.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Entrope ( 68843 )

          China reneged on its agreements about Hong Kong's level of autonomy after it took over from the UK in 1997. It is still trying to use its Belt and Road Initiative to buy influence around the globe, even as it is clashing with Indian troops over disputed border lines, ramming both private and government ships from other countries in the South China Sea, and conducting wide-ranging espionage.

          Unless you think Canada is a European territory, you should not let your insecurities over what Greenland decides to d

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Nugoo ( 1794744 )

            Unless you think Canada is a European territory, you should not let your insecurities over what Greenland decides to do overly influence your idea of who is less trustworthy.

            I'm not worried at all about Greenland's decisions; it's the US's decisions that are alarming. And frankly, who are you to tell me what should influence my perception of the US?

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Entrope ( 68843 )

              I'm someone pointing out basic logic, that's who I am. The fact that the US is closer than China to European territories doesn't reflect on their relative trustworthiness -- although it might affect which you worry about more (if Greenland is an important territory to you). The fact that China has broken its word about territories in the recent past and continues to threaten its neighbors does reflect on trustworthiness.

        • You see "US is materially less trustworthy these days" , I beg to differ, see all that shit the US did in its history, Tuskegee experiment, trail of tears and massacre, internement of Japanese, come to WW2 only when attacked, shit with Irak and WMD, CIA impact on south-am, vietnam, and so forth.... I have never seen the US as more trustworthy than your random superpower seeing only its own interest (political and economical) - and nobody's else - they only aligned with ours by accident. And now you see the

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Nugoo ( 1794744 )

            I agree with you that the US has generally been pretty imperialistic throughout its history. But up until the last few years, I filed it under the "self-centered, but benign" category from the perspective of western Europe and the rest of North America, as opposed to the "active threat" category, like Russia.

            I want to emphasize that I'm speaking from the perspective of western Europe and North America. Obviously, Taiwan would see China as a greater threat than the US. But for the Netherlands, the US has

        • 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.

          doesnt matter if its european or otherwise; annexations anywhere should be taken seriously.
          if you wait until it's literally you or your neighbor, you have your head in your ass.

          that said, trump says a lot and changes his mind often--who knows what he'll actually act on.
          by contrast, russia is currently invading ukraine, and china is clearly gearing up to do so to taiwan.
          simply observe.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The hacks are not due to having Chinese software though. They were using US software and had poor security practices.

    • 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?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      Must be fun being that naive. This is a smokescreens so they can backdoor the encryption and spy on their own people to stay in power.
    • Indeed, as the US needs to reduce its dependency on other nations. It's called 'running your own country.'

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I disagree. If you have a long-standing, mutual and good relationship with another country, then you absolutely should be relying on it (and so should they). For decades, the USA has been broadly speaking a good friend/ally/partner with numerous European countries. Those countries felt comfortable enough with that relationship to build something on it.

      A few years ago, Russia became an unreliably trading partner. Whilst they were never "really good friends" with anyone, there was enough mutual benefit in som

    • So far, the main ones accomplishing this are China, Russia, and North Korea.

  • 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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      Trump 2016 [youtube.com]: "We're going to win so much, you might even get tired of winning."

      Believe me, by 2020 we were pretty exhausted from so much "winning".

      Trump 2025: hold my Diet Coke!

  • 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

    • You most likely do know them, just don't know that they are European. But ignorance about the rest of the world is kind of expected from Americans.

  • Has been tried... (Score:4, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @05:53PM (#65243449)

    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.

      • why look to examples of UK incompetence rather than examples of German success?

        I thought Germany abandoned the Linux stuff as well, are they still using it? I figured it was all the same between the UK and other countries in the EU that had gone the same path, but if there was a good outcome I'm all ears...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by burni2 ( 1643061 )

          It was exchanged, by the new mayor and Linux hat, to get a Microsoft investment and to ditch LiMux.

          A really devilish deal.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xarius ( 691264 )

      There was nothing technical about abandoning the switch. It was Microsoft pouring huge amounts of money into lobbying to prevent the switch.

  • 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...

  • Not just reliance on software services (Score:3)

    by Teun ( 17872 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @06:41PM (#65243551)
    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 there is a significant groundswell to no longer buy US products.
    The largest owner of Danish supermarkets, the Salling Group, is now putting a little star on the labels of non-US products.
    The curious part of the groundswell is that it is especially organized via Facebook...

    • 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.

          • The problem with the JAS39 is that it uses an American engine, which can cause issues with resale. Saab was not interested in re-engining the Gripen with the EJ200, but maybe they might rethink it now.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dskoll ( 99328 )

              I reckon Saab is urgently looking at options for replacing US components with non-US ones.

    • 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:small country but gutsy (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @09:19PM (#65243929) Homepage

      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.

    • So Germany, Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland AND Holland has a population of 135 million together. That is including ignoring South Africa, for a lot of reasons.
      That IS the Dutch market. What you are saying is a lot like saying "Texas is only a market of 31 million, surely they can't develop anything".

      One of the great struggles with the EU project, is that it used to be what you said: Internal economies, language barriers, trade restrictions.
      But there is a point here: What remains is

  • This pisses me off. It is a self-inflicted wound among many others. We were able to recover from Trump's first term. The damage wasn't as severe. But he is hell bent on doing a lot of destruction this time around. And I don't fault the Europeans, Canadians and others to take their business elsewhere. It will be a long time before we recover from Trump's second term, if ever.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by servies ( 301423 )

      It's not just Trump (you're giving him to much credit). It's also the Republican Party...
      If you want to cure your country first thing you'll have to do is to get rid of the "first past the post" election system. That's just an utterly retarded system and has nothing to do with democracy....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        In a system with effectively only two parties, first past the post is about the same as any other system. It takes a viable third party to make a difference.

        • First-past-the-post elections with single-member districts tends to result in a two-party system. Which is fine, since that's how the population tends to cleave on any given issue. How many parties do you need when almost everything coalesces down to two positions? Why have unstable coalitions that still come down to a contest between conservative and liberal?
      • Nobody in the US gets any "credit" for this, it's just a continuation of what a segment of European politicians have been saying for decades.

        And no, I don't think that getting rid of our, "the winner is the person with the most votes", system would be good for democracy. In fact, I'd say that it has quite a lot to do with democracy. I also happen to think that the Parliamentary system is utterly retarded. A mess that makes basic governance a tangled web of shifting coalitions and fragile executives.

    • Wait, did you think this was new? European nations have been saying this for DECADES. It has nothing to do with who is in the White House. If it did, why were they talking about it during every other administration? There have been stories about it on Slashdot for as long as I've been coming here.

      This Volt woman threw some anti-Trump BS in there for political reasons, despite her apparent qualms already having been dealt with by the GDPR.

      Go ahead and search Slashdot for stories about European nation

  • "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?"

    You did ask that and then passed the GDPR to deal with it. Has the EU forgotten that?

    • The GDPR is about citizens' personal data. This motion is about the national government's reliance on US companies' products. The GDPR does not apply here (except for when government agencies process such personal data, and then the onus would be on them, as they are the ones that have to comply with the GDPR - which increasingly means you can't use US tech as the USA has become unreliable at best, hostile at worst).
      • Yes, and the statement I quoted is also about citizens' personal data. She is talking crap. Crap unrelated to the motion at hand.

        AS for the US being unreliable or hostile.... That's just stupid. Not having a left-wing idiot like Biden or this Dutch ditz in the White House does not make the US unreliable or hostile, it just means you're too far out on the left wing to accurately judge.

        • Its the actions and rhetoric of the US that make them unreliable and/or hostile. Volt is not a left-wing party, by the way, and Marieke Koekkoek wasn't referring to personal data, but to any government data. This is clear not just from the article, but also from the motion as presented before parliament (yes, I have read the original text in Dutch). Your unwarranted insults show that you are most likely a US Republican and have little or no understanding of Dutch politics orr EU law.

        • >AS for the US being unreliable or hostile.... That's just stupid
          As a Canadian, I can assure you that we have found Herr Trump *very* unreliable and hostile.

  • Great idea. Good luck. The EU has made is so hostile to computer companies - that all the talent moved away - to the USA.SO, to get it back/keep it - you need to change MANY laws and rules so that it makes it attractive to have a software company in the EU. This is a great thought, but the system is not currently setup for this - and the speed in which the EU is moving... it would take decades for this to change and then decades to actually build it. Not a short term solution, this is a very very very lon
  • There already exists an open source solution NextCloud [nextcloud.com]. It has a ton of features and is being used by many companies, organizations, and governments. It is a collaboration platform and it hails from Germany.
  • I hope they do, and I hope they embrace open source. Nextcloud is awesome software and a very capable alternative to Google Workspaces and Microsoft 365. It's also free. More open source competition is welcome.

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