For me (as an EU citizen), sovereignty is about being independent of companies operating under law that I have no control of (can't vote in the US) and is veeery unpredictible (Trump administration). I don't want to wake up one day I find out my bill tripped because of some tax imposed on EU or completely cut off, because the president woke up in bad mood that morning. EU is very fat from perfect, but for me it is still closer to home, and I truly root for any EU company that tries to take on the US behemoths. I moved everything from GCP and AWS to Hetzner, and am moving from Github to Codeberg.
Unfortunately, it's realty hard. The US giants have offerings that no one in EU has and I am investing huge amounts of time into working around them (e.g. Windows and MacOS CI runners on Github - try to get this for free in EU). I'm fine with paying a bit for this, but even then it's a huge hassle to set it up to be able to get CI checks for my projects on Windows/MacOS. And it's not cheap either. I can afford it, but it is still very expensive.
I feel the article is a bit roundabout, but eventually gets to the point: "Sovereignty" is not (mainly) about physical location, it's about which legal entity controls the data and whether or not that entity is subject to US jurisdiction and could be forced to disclose the data to US companies or agencies, in violation of EU law.
Which is mightily funny because in the opening paragraph the article equates "anti-free movement" with "problematic baggage". It's a problem if people can't move freely in and out of Europe, but not data -- that's our red line!
> Yes, the EU “cloud providers” are lagging behind but they’re catching up. Scaleway, Herzner, and others are there, and you should check them out if you’re starting a business in the EU.
I would argue that these aren't even "cloud providers", they are just VPS providers. Which is fine, but it's not the same thing.
There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doubt there ever will be because who would even build it?
It would cost billions and billions of euros just to be "not AWS" (but worse in every way except location). Who is investing in that?
You cannot possibly with a straight face claim that Scaleway is a VPS provider. Hetzner, sure, but Scaleway offers compute and database services in the same way that AWS does - just fewer.
But why would the Europeans want to copy the US "cloud" model of micro-compartmentalizing services into hundreds of abstracted products carefully designed to have circular dependencies between each other ..... And all shipped with price sheets billed in invented unit metrics and more small-print than a packet of prescription drugs that makes it completely impossible to predict how much you're going to pay.
I'll take the cleaner approach with predictable billing offered by the EU providers. Even if it means using my brain to RTFM and edit a couple of config files (which can then be rolled into automation via images or Ansible or whatever).
Big companies that see the opportunity to be "Not AWS"?
A VPS provider who wants to grow their marketshare?
Nation states?
Not saying it'll be a small effort, but if the US continues to wield national laws to coerce American companies to negatively affect European citizens, it's possible.
> There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doubt there ever will be because who would even build it?
The French are second to everything + they strip naked the CEOs they hate (the Air France event and the series of CEOs taken hostage in the 1990ies) = They would never align themselves to build something that makes money. DailyMotion is 1/1000th what Youtube is; Mistral is 1/1000th what OpenAI is, nothing has changed in 20 years.
Sure France would spend the money. We’d see none of the results.
I disagree, "cloud" is extracting basic Linux functions into as many proprietary services as possible because businesses would rather deal with obscure YAML configurations than ever having to touch Linux-proper.
This is such a dumb topic to me - and I work closely to this issue. The blog post talks about criminal surveillance and gag order possibilities - but has no examples of these being meaningfully applied. Eu govt also spies on citizens.
Obviously the true political point is the geopolitical security risk of depending on another country. There's some truth there but really all countries depend on all others and the way to balance it is to use and grow the trading leverage you do have, not trying to shore up your weaknesses.
The EU's "E-Evidence framework" allows authorities in any member state to compel entities doing business in any part of the EU to produce and/or preserve communications data, completely by-passing cross-border barriers.
_e.g._ Victor Orban could have wiretapped any communication within the EU. Supporter by an EU directive
Unfortunately, it's realty hard. The US giants have offerings that no one in EU has and I am investing huge amounts of time into working around them (e.g. Windows and MacOS CI runners on Github - try to get this for free in EU). I'm fine with paying a bit for this, but even then it's a huge hassle to set it up to be able to get CI checks for my projects on Windows/MacOS. And it's not cheap either. I can afford it, but it is still very expensive.
Would you also support free movement of all the valuables in your bank vault?
I would argue that these aren't even "cloud providers", they are just VPS providers. Which is fine, but it's not the same thing.
There really isn't any European "cloud" service at all, which is a huge part of the problem. And I doubt there ever will be because who would even build it?
It would cost billions and billions of euros just to be "not AWS" (but worse in every way except location). Who is investing in that?
I'll take the cleaner approach with predictable billing offered by the EU providers. Even if it means using my brain to RTFM and edit a couple of config files (which can then be rolled into automation via images or Ansible or whatever).
It’s painful being a non-EU person working here, and hearing people wax lyrical about sovereign EU cloud without an actual product or product plan.
And once a product is anctua shipped and offered it is like already 5 years behind what US clouds are offering.
It’s embarrassing really
Big companies that see the opportunity to be "Not AWS"?
A VPS provider who wants to grow their marketshare?
Nation states?
Not saying it'll be a small effort, but if the US continues to wield national laws to coerce American companies to negatively affect European citizens, it's possible.
Lidl! https://horovits.medium.com/lidl-is-taking-on-aws-the-age-of...
My money would be on the French.
Sure France would spend the money. We’d see none of the results.
Travel bans, visa/mastercard, debanking, the whole nine yards.
Obviously the true political point is the geopolitical security risk of depending on another country. There's some truth there but really all countries depend on all others and the way to balance it is to use and grow the trading leverage you do have, not trying to shore up your weaknesses.
_e.g._ Victor Orban could have wiretapped any communication within the EU. Supporter by an EU directive