Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Symbolic motion vs on‑the‑ground reality

  • Several commenters stress this is only a parliamentary call; the government is still deeply committed to Microsoft, O365, Azure and has recently moved more systems into US clouds.
  • Skepticism that parties pushing this have backed policies (e.g., limiting data centers, weakening expat incentives) that make building local tech harder.
  • Many expect little follow‑through: “nice gesture” unless backed by funding, procurement changes and tolerance for trade‑offs.

Data sovereignty, US dependence & geopolitics

  • Strong theme that US tech dependence is now a strategic risk, similar to past dependence on Russian gas. One hostile US administration could weaponize cloud and SaaS against Europe.
  • Some see this as part of a broader “de‑Americanization” and multipolar world; others warn that a multipolar world is also unstable.
  • There’s support for decentralization and self‑sovereign infrastructure (e.g., verifiable credentials for diplomas) as protection against both foreign states and domestic governments.

EU tech ecosystem, regulation and ‘anti‑technology’

  • Debate over whether European politics is “anti‑technology” or just anti‑billionaire/anti‑plutocracy.
  • Many argue Europe’s real problems are: fragmented markets, heavy bureaucracy, difficulty firing employees, high government share of GDP, and weak venture capital.
  • Others counter that social protections and regulation (privacy, worker rights) are features, not bugs, and that the US lost trust by abusing its dominance.

Open source and practical replacements

  • Strong push for “public money, public code”, self‑hosted open source and EU‑funded FOSS (Linux, LibreOffice, Nextcloud, Collabora, Mastodon, NLnet projects).
  • Big argument over how far LibreOffice can replace Microsoft Office:
    • Pro side: good enough for “99%” of government use; Excel macro‑dependency is a governance bug.
    • Skeptical side: enormous legacy of complex Excel models and Office as a full collaboration/identity stack make migration non‑trivial.
  • A few see funding a Collabora‑like “EU cloud Office” as cheap compared to what’s already spent on energy imports or US hyperscalers.

Infrastructure, environment and scale limits

  • Netherlands’ restrictions on new big-tech data centers are defended as necessary due to grid saturation, green‑energy capture by US clouds, and heavy water use. Critics see a contradiction with calls for sovereignty.
  • Multiple commenters question whether a small country can ever field full-stack alternatives alone; argue this must be done at EU scale, and even then will be slow and partial.