Can citizens convince the EU commission to invest in opensource in this political climate?

In my university, computers in the public rooms all ran Mint, and we had a working self-hosted mail platform. Here comes Microsoft and in a few months all computers are replaced by Windows machines and the email platform runs on Outlook. My previous university also had the same approach: all Microsoft products.

I'd really love to know all the details of those deals. I know they offer scholarships and fund development programs (in exchange they make students dependent / educated only on MS products), but I still feel its a loss of freedom for all our institutions.

Anything server or database related is already on Linux. Managed by professionals.

The problem are the desktops. Those still run windows, it's a walled garden. Government windows licenses are dirt-cheap. support is ubiquitous and almost everyone knows how to work with windows. The cost of switching is just too high.

I guess because they want to make money of it, and don't publish their source code or algorithm?

Thanks. I'm curious why @qwant@mastodon.social and @ecosia@mastodon.social aren't contributing to this and starting their own venture instead.

@openwebsearcheu@suma-ev.social is your search index the basis for a european search engine? And if so, how does one do so and why aren't Qwant and/or Ecosia not doing so?

>How do I know who my MEP is?

This may help: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home

I guess it suffices to write your national party or even their European fraction, as voting happens over lists anyway.

And don't forget your national government, they can exert pressure over the European Commission too

https://www.ngi.eu/ngi-projects/ngi-openwebsearcheu/

You can write your MEP

How do I know who my MEP is? The dude/dudette who got the most votes in the municipality I'm registered in?

European Search Index

Last I checked (homepage) there's no mention of NGI at all.

In this context my guess is intellectual property.

Sorry, I meant Intellectual Property, primarily around patents, copyright, interpretations of fair use, right to repair, etc.

Drug law is the same, unfortunately. Most drugs were outlawed because the US said it should be. It's about time we stopped listening to some of their dumb opinions.

Sorry but - IP stands for... Internet protocol?

that would be a good idea honestly.

Cory Doctorow is Canadian-British, and consequently he has been writing quite a bit lately about how IP law is largely a regulatory regime imposed on countries by the United States through free trade agreements since it predominantly benefits American corporations.

Basically, if America want to tear up trade agreements, that makes IP law an *ideal* target for asymmetric trade warfare through more progressive IP systems.

You can write your MEP to not cut funding to their NGI (Next Generation Internet) Initiative which already has funded many Open-Source Projects from Wireguard to Pixelfed, or also currently an European Search Index

https://nlnet.nl/NGI0/

They can, but in my opinion, the omnipresence of AI in the minds of the responsible officials must be put aside first.

I suggest joining or forming alliances and support the campaigns of experienced NGOs.

Edit: An example is Public Money, Public Code by the Free Software Foundation Europe.

They need to get off Twitter. Go back to using the Press for official statements of high importance. And use Mastodon (Bluesky can interact with Mastodon instances in the future iirc) for rest.

As a longer term project, move govt systems to Linux.

The added benefit is no reliance on foreign tech companies who will kow-tow to autocratic governments.

Also since we can afford to develop open source software, it will also benefit poorer and developing countries. Which is a goal on it's own, but will also put the the EU in a good light elsewhere.