One topic dominated the recent 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe, and it wasn't AI.

Europe is moving decisively away from U.S. tech giants toward open-source alternatives, driven by concerns over digital sovereignty and reliability of American companies[1]. At the 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe, industry leaders emphasized that this shift isn’t about isolation but resilience.

“What we’re really looking for is resilience. What we want for our countries, for our companies, for ourselves, is resilience in the face of unforeseen events in a fast-changing world. Open source allows us to be sovereign without being isolated,” said OpenInfra Foundation general manager Thierry Carrez[1:1].

This transition is already happening. The German state Schleswig-Holstein has replaced Microsoft Exchange and Outlook with open-source email solutions. Similar moves have been made by the Austrian military, Danish government organizations, and the French city of Lyon[1:2].

European companies are stepping up to fill the gap with open-source alternatives, including:

  • Deutsche Telekom’s Open Telekom Cloud
  • OVHcloud’s sovereign cloud services
  • STACKIT and VanillaCore’s European-based offerings[1:3]

The movement gained additional momentum when the European Commission appointed its first executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy in 2024[1:4].

  1. ZDNet - Europe’s plan to ditch US tech giants is built on open source - and it’s gaining steam ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  • vogo13@sh.itjust.works
    254·
    5 months ago

    Yeah Canadians are so serious about boycotting the US, except everyone still uses Mastercard, Visa, Android, Google, AWS, Microsoft, Linkedin, Indeed, FB, IG, etc. etc. They can’t even press the free delete account button, what a great boycott! Finally after almost a year only the EU is just beginning to discuss digital sovereignty.

    • bravemonkey@lemmy.ca
      72·
      5 months ago

      What do Canadians have to do with European tech sovereignty? Why are you trying to hijack this thread?

      And for Canadians, what realistic alternatives are you suggesting for everything you’ve listed?

      If you want to be taken seriously, start by proposing an actionable plan.

    • Batmorous@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      It will happen though everything takes time and effort. Wonder what a Mastercard/Visa open source alternative would even look like though. Facebook alt I am debating making myself with a team of interested people but building it out to see how it would be done

      Open Source Alternatives:

      • PostmarketOS, Mobian, Ubuntu Touch, and FSF Librephone (Europe should partner with them all for funding)
      • All kinds of AWS, and Google alts for each product: alternativeto.net shows plenty
      • A person is making a LinkedIn/Indeed alternative (They posted on the Open Source community here on Lemmy) and want to make a team overtime too
      • Stoat for open source Discord alt also a team in place
      • A team is working on Flashes (IG Alt)
      • Another team on Spark.so (TTok Alt) 2 decent alternatives for now until we get full blown decentralized options