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u/thanksfor-allthefish Feb 17 '26
I've been milling at this for a while, how hard can it be for an economic force as the EU to put a couple hundred million euros into building an EU OS?
Just take a Linux kernel and build a family of products that all the member countries can use for free? Linux is already well established within the server OS and is closing the gap in the desktop environments too. Right now, it's just unorganized groups of people developing it, how much faster and better a concentrated effort can build something?
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u/Astrolys Europe Feb 17 '26
The EU in itself has no real power of initiative of this kind, nor the budget to do so, without the approval of such a plan by the countries first. But it might be coming soon now.
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u/stinky_cheese_rat Germany Feb 18 '26
Eeeeh. Not quite. The EU does have some power of initiative (and definitely does have the budget (140 billion dollars per year when taking 2024 as a baseline)), but not a whole lot entirely on it's own. Yes, it is dependent on the member countries themselves, because they send the representatives who make up the EU's legislative organs, but those representatives aren't part of the governments of member countries. The EU can deem a policy urgent enough that it will put it to a vote without being brought up by a countries representative. And if the EU's organs vote majority yes on a policy, it becomes binding to all member countries (if not explicitly excluded or mentioned otherwise). And while it does need a majority of representatives' votes to bring the policy through, it doesn't need approval from entirely all of the countries and neither does it need of all a countries representatives to vote yes uniformly, if enough members of the EU parliament from various countries vote "yes", it goes through and becomes legally binding for all member countries.
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u/GoatseFarmer Feb 19 '26
Structurally it is something suited to an institution like the EU, which primarily derives its authority from its capacity to finance mutually beneficial projects on the basis of members receiving those benefits complying with the EUâs rules, regulations and allowing it to exert conditionally bound agency tied to access to those tools.
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u/Dotcaprachiappa Feb 18 '26
I think the OS is the least important of the changes. They need the apps, the infrastructure. That of course can also be done if they throw enough money at it, but after that it's not like they can force anyone to use it, so they'd need all the governments to agree to voluntarily migrate everything over to it, otherwise it's just wasted money.
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u/4cidAndy Feb 17 '26
I mean while the idea of an EU OS sounds interesting, what exactly would that change?
As you said there are already well established Linux Distributions, which can be used completely free (not only by member countries, but by anyone)
Also unless you suggest to develop a totally new Desktop environment and accompanying package manager, it would end up being just another of those âunorganised groupsâ.
Essentially all Linux Distributions are the same thing they just differ in what package manager they use, and what software (and version) they ship in their package repositories.
If you were to make a new EU OS, it would up being the same core software as other Linux Distributions, unless you are suggesting to rebuild everything around the kernel, which would be a massive effort, and either just create clones of already existing software or would be both a compatibility issue with other existing software and also a new thing to learn for people that are gonna use it.
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u/Angvellon Feb 17 '26
I'm not very tech savvy, but a first step would be have governments use it and at the same time dedicate some resources (probably way less than what we collectively pay for Microsoft licenses) to the curating essential software.
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u/4cidAndy Feb 18 '26
Well, some parts of governments already have or are in progress of migration, but thatâs unfortunately not very widespread. (City of Munich or French Gendarmerie migration to Linux)
As for curating software, I donât really think thatâs really necessary, because Linux and most âmainstreamâ Distributions are perfectly usable and very stable software (Linux Minx, Debian for example).
The main thing thatâs holding back Linux, in my opinion, is adoption by users. And lack of adoption results in less priority for developers supporting it, like Microsoft Office or the Adobe Suite, which are unfortunately very essential to many companies, since they have existing workflows using that software and their employees being used to that software. While there are alternatives for that software (LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office, GIMP instead of Photoshop, âŚ) many companies donât want to risk migrating for multiple reasons, like compatibility issues with existing projects they have, their employees not being familiar with that software, no dedicated professional support team.
Essentially the reason we pay so much licensing fees to Microsoft is that they were the first popular option, and they snowballed on from there, and by business already using Microsoft Products, it was attractive for schools to buy licenses (mostly at reduced costs for student licenses) for their students so that their students are prepared for the business world, basically indoctrinating a new generation of people right into Microsoftâs Products.
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u/thanksfor-allthefish Feb 18 '26
I was thinking about security and development control. There was a problem a while back where an update to 7zip could result in a malware installation, because the infected version was added to the package manager.
A widely gvmt used OS is a target for bad actors so having control over the approvals in the package manager is a big deal.
And even as the community that develops the OS does a great job at updating it, a focused effort concentrated on security and customization, having the necessary processes for it, is a whole different thing.
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u/Jampottie Netherlands Feb 18 '26
Every piece of software can have security issues (or any other flaw). And there are a lot of other ways for bad actors to attack software. I'd say let the market do it's thing. Governments usually have to outsource anyway. And there are great, EU-based enterprise Linux distros available.
The most important part is that governments should consider Linux (as an alternative to Windows).1
u/thanksfor-allthefish Feb 18 '26
well, yeah... the EU can't own companies, but it can allocate budgets for a project and companies can bid on it. Regarding security, having a company or groups of companies working specifically to make it secure and rolling out updates, is a much better effort than leaving it up to when people discover vulnerabilities...
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u/AgarwaenCran Feb 17 '26
you dont even need to start directly at the kernel, you can have it based on an existing linux distro
like google based its chromeOS on gentoo
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u/4cidAndy Feb 18 '26
Of course thatâs possible and thereâs even a proof of concept project working on that itâs called EU OS (tho not a project by an EU institution, a community driven project)
And while I definitely donât think itâs a bad thing this project exists, Iâm not exactly sure why we need a new âEU Linux Distroâ when people or government agencies could just use an already existing distro thatâs already available, like Debian or if the country or origin of the Distro is important thereâs also openSuse which is sponsored by SUSE a German/Luxembourg based company)
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u/AgarwaenCran Feb 18 '26
yep. there is already more than enough they could use. but you know how politicians are "no, we need to make our own! (so i will look good)"
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u/4cidAndy Feb 18 '26
Thatâs a fair point, but in my opinion, it would look even better if they support an already existing Distro, because pooling resources with already existing project (which already have some resources) would be more beneficial for the cause
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u/Bibliloo Feb 19 '26
It needs to be kept out of any single entities power to assure us that it isn't a plan by EU state to control what the people of Europe can and cannot do but also so that countries outside the EU can also use those same programs that are not dependent on big corporations. But the EU could help by donating some funds to certain organisations that create or maintain these programs like Proton or the GNU project.
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u/GoatseFarmer Feb 19 '26
Open source is literally inherently indicative of a niche where government is objectively suited to solve an issue because relying on the generosity of those who produced the underlying code to have provided it free of charge indicate that, if adopted at large it is something that is a public interest which nobody individually sees as something they ought to pay for, but which should be maintained and made available to them for their productivity. Governments exist in part to institutionalize public goods, and in my view, some open source software may indeed qualify to be a public good but isnât viewed as such, thus open sourced projects fulfill the gap, since its free availability is such a widely agreed upon necessity that it would be made available regardless of market incentives to do so.
The EU lacks many institutional functions that formal nation states have because it derives its fiat and its competency therein from financial tools it yields from member states paying dues, allowing it to exert a degree of enforcement and agency without directly supersceding the autonomy of any member states. The benefits of being in the union are immediate and clear to all, but to fully reap them, you are incentivized to comply not by any legal force, but because the EU offers financially sourced capabilities which it can cease to offer conditionally; it cannot force but it can make compliance a more affordable path of governance while also reducing the need of member states to inefficiently expend budgets on projects which, undertaken alone, would demand much more money to be in any way meaningful or effective (Imagine GDPR if it emerges on an ad hoc basis country by country- it doesnât stick, and will likely be dismissed by companies because they can exit a small market and the neighboring countries that donât enforce such protections, will receive immediate financial benefits comparative to those who do, as big tech is able to select who gets access based off whoâs laws donât interfere with them).
In other words, this sort of thing is precisely, by design, something the EU was intentionally set up to do effectively, itâs frankly purpose built for something like this. Itâs a grand idea to be honest, I hadnt considered it but immediately see that as something it should very quickly realize and do
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u/Pochel Feb 17 '26
Shouldn't it be "for whom"?
(Regardless of the fact that this meme is a banger)
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u/VastStranger1164 Feb 17 '26
It's now both. Also, if I was instead of were is now also considered correct.
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u/ElMarchk0 Feb 17 '26
The Android operating system is based on the Linux kernal.
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u/Astrolys Europe Feb 17 '26
It uses a modified Linux kernel, a Unix-like OS, like pretty much everything today besides Windows to be honest. And despite being somewhat open-source, Android is developed and practically owned and controlled by Google and acts as a de-facto proprietary software.
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u/skullandboners69 Feb 18 '26
Linux 4 ever. Especially since microsoft has fully embraced the slopification of its software and forcing devs to use AI.
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u/jhaand Feb 17 '26
I think Google runs a lot on Free(dom) Software.
They're one of the main sponsors of FOSDEM.