Re: Appel à contribution sur les logiciels libres par la Commission Européenne

Voici ce que je pense envoyer comme réponse. Est-ce que cela vous paraît déraisonnable ?

"Although the EU boast to be a fervent open source supporter, it is universally known as a deeply feuded to, mostly US, tech monopolies. Which is nothing short of amazing for an institution that also champions to organize a free market.
A simple look at the document titled "CALL FOR EVIDENCE FOR AN INITIATIVE (without an impact assessment)" is confounding on this matter : instead of choosing free and open source fonts, the authors choose to acknowledge it institutionnals submission to American monopolies by employing their fonts (Times new roman, Arial...). Granted, this has no real impact. Yet this is a testimony of a culture of submission. Even when NO effort at all is required to get away with the dependency toward those overlords, the cultural choice of every potent person in the EU is not open source tools.

My first suggestion is therefore to start building a culture of freedom and free software use. The cost is negligible. Just stop using closed-source software everywhere the job can be done with free software. The opposite strategy used by tech giants is very well documented (entrism in schools, every prominent institution...). This hints that, although this first suggestion seems lenient, it is in fact of primary importance. Stop shouting "do what I say, and do not imitate my deeds"; give the good example. Everyone who has tried knows that most (if not all) tasks, especially non-technical ones, can be achieved with free software. The cost of such a change is not zero but negative, since it would imply stopping the payment of licence fees.

A major source of the culture currently at work in EU institutions is this entrism of US companies. Among the very successful strategies they use is preinstalled software. Enforce the possibility for users to choose the software installed on their devices, and you may start changing this culture. Consider, for instance, the complaints of people against the preinstalled bloatware on their smartphones. Wouldn’t they appreciate being set free? For example, if drivers were mandatorily open source, or if material specifications needed to build the drivers had to be provided for any electronic device entering the EU market. You would break this chain for free, since one of the most stringent problems for free software adopters is devices that are purposely designed to be incompatible with freedom. Make them incompatible with the EU market. You would burn this leveraging tool for (foreign) monopolies.

The culture I am writing about is so deeply rooted that most people do not feel at odds with one of the most alarming threats emerging: many, if not most, electronic devices are now connected. And they are not connected at their owners’ will, but at their makers’. It is not a felony in the EU if a maker removes some properties of electronic devices owned by EU citizens or institutions. For instance, has anyone forgotten the deletion by Amazon of the novel 1984 from its Kindles? Instead of blindly following the US in laws sanctuarizing makers’ powers and real ownership over that of citizens (especially DMCA 1201, which is mirrored in the EUCD), the EU must become the new haven for digital freedom. Repealing any kind of DRM and anti-circumvention laws would result in a new, spontaneously thriving digital economy in the EU. Conversely, imagine what could happen if cloud providers or manufacturers controlling electronic devices—such as solar cells across the EU—started abusing their position as Amazon did. Nowadays, winning a war against the EU would not even require firing a bullet.

Presently, US tech companies make trillions by leveraging their monopolies, although most of the software stack is free or open source. Such an opportunity to shake down their jug will likely not happen again. The laws enforcing those monopolies were adopted through a mix of lobbying (which will remain intense) and threats. The EU has historically been pusillanimous by giving way to the latter. The Trump administration is now blatantly abusing the strong position it has thus gained. It is high time to stop indulging. Just walk the hard but free way: repeal the EUCD. Make laws that restore full property rights to citizens. There is no associated cost anymore (tariffs are no longer a threat), except political will. It is also important to stress that monopolies’ most common strategy is to jail users through non-interoperability. Creating laws enforcing interoperability for services offered to EU citizens would blast this lock. Were you to take these steps, the EU free software industry would awaken from its decades of drowsiness.

Another way to allow a strong free software industry to emerge is to stop developing the non-productive, ever-growing, parasitic industry of intellectual property—most notably patent law. Over the last decades, every possible way to let software patents hang like a sword of Damocles over the heads of aspiring software companies has been used. Today, this continues through the Unified European Patent and the associated Unified Patent Court, a stronghold of big tech lobbyists. Make it clear that no software patent will ever be enforced. This is a sine qua non condition for a European tech industry to exist.

Once these measures are taken, keep supporting open and free tech development. Continue avoiding the build-up of monopolies and monopsonies in the industry, and you will obtain a strong tech industry in the EU.

I hope this contribution clearly answers the concern expressed by:
"However, it has emerged that supporting open-source communities solely through research and innovation programmes is not sufficient for successful upscaling and that it is critical to support emerging developer communities and businesses in scaling up via sustainable support and governance frameworks aiming for community upscaling, industrial deployment, market integration and commercial viability of open-source innovations."

The proposal can be summarized as:

Use free software when possible.

(Re)create the cultural conditions for free software to thrive (for instance, by prohibiting preinstalled software and electronic devices closed—by any means—to free software drivers).

Do your job and create the legal conditions for the development of an EU-based free software industry (by repealing laws favoring US monopolies, such as the EUCD and software patent mechanisms)."

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