Gastkommentar: Open Source allein macht Europa nicht souverän
Viele Organisationen ersetzen Microsoft durch offene Software. Doch um wirklich unabhängig von US-Anbietern zu sein, ist noch etwas anderes nötig, meint EU-Digitalexperte Thomas Gageik.
US authorities can compel American cloud providers to hand over their customers' data to government agencies, regardless of where the data is stored. American providers may also restrict access to their services: Ukraine painfully discovered this when they lost access to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system. To make Europe digitally sovereign and manage such risks, the European Commission has pursued a Tech Sovereignty package, aiming for provider-independent open-source programs.
A key element of this strategy is the use of open-source programs whose design is transparent to all. Anyone can use, modify, and share them without paying licensing fees. In Germany (and other EU countries), authorities have already switched to such programs: the federal government provided the office software Open Desk as an alternative to Microsoft 365, while Schleswig-Holstein is currently replacing Microsoft programs for 25,000 jobs.
I believe this path to open-source software is correct and have managed a corresponding strategy at the European Commission. These programs also strengthen the local digital ecosystem.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
