GlyphI am really starting to loathe the “sovereignty” framing of open source sustainability, or data privacy, or whatever. It would be good to have a better tech community less beholden to the interests of multinational corporations, more globally distributed, etc, but when you have a problem and you think “I know what would make this better. Intense German, French, and English nationalism” now you have like… at least five problems
Netzblockierer
JP
Nick Silkey 📻 N5ILK 🪓🪵 🪣💧@glyph bingo! it's as if the natural rights of man and of free and open source software are ... interrelated ... somehow. 🫂✌️💙
Len 
🍉@glyph I think this is the undertone of the difference between #FreeSoftware and #OpenSource. The term Open Source got widely adopted, but it has to be acknowledged it has the backing of the big business, and it is hard to compete against that. I could go on about EU being liberal economy project and so on, but I don't have good English sources on it.
illegal instruction@glyph also it often means "what if the same thing with all the same problems as the US made thing, but made by Europeans?"
Nini
bovaz
bmaxv@glyph That is not what the word means to me.
To me it means my own sovereignty, personal, individual over my hard and software. My own self. Autonomy. And the same for every other individual.
And that's how and why I am going to continue to use it. I will not surrender that word to anyone. Kind of the point of it.
@bmaxv technically speaking “sovereignty” and “autonomy” are synonymous in some contexts, those contexts all carry the implication of collective authority, and in particular independent nation-states, where the individual is only referred to as things like “self-sovereign” by analogy to a state. The word “sovereign” derives from the latin “super” meaning above, over. The sovereign is the supreme authority above all. you can use the word how you like but it will not be widely understood that way
@glyph I'm respectfully asking you to add that meaning to your... brain space?
I hate being the ackshully guy, please try to see the situational comedy over the cringy nature of doing it, but it's actually in the dictionary:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereignty
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereign
It's a pretty important concept to me, that's why I am pushing back on this so much.
@bmaxv yes I read that to confirm my understanding before replying. I even preemptively conceded that “autonomy” is technically in its set of definitions. Look holistically at the set of definitions and usages, not just the fact that it’s there
catchI am looking at it holistically.
Do you think the fact that nation states happen to reuse the same concept, taints it and that taint implying some necessity for self censorship to prevent association?
It's very funny that we're arguing over a word meaning "being free of external influence", you insisting I shouldn't use it btw. 😂
@bmaxv @catch56 look I was just letting you know that you have unusual usage here; nation states have not “re-used” the concept, it’s a concept that was, etymologically speaking, created to describe their relationship among one another. But live your best life, use it that way if you want, perhaps you exist in a sub-community that is evolving language in this direction, I am not your boss
Yes and I was letting you know that that usage is not unusual, it's the reason so many use it in the current context and discussion of adopting more FOSS.
It's not a sub community. As I said, my usage is literally in the dictionary.
No hard feelings to you either though. I respect that you read the word that way, it's just not going to make me stop using it my way.
@glyph @bmaxv this is outdated, it doesn't cover his protégés joining the Brexit Party (now Reform) then going into the House of Lords and Boris Johnson's administration, and it also doesn't cover Furedi running an institute funded by Orban, but it covers everything up until those points pretty well.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n13/jenny-turner/who-are-they
mirabilos🐈⬛
Nils Goroll 🕊️
To everybody else I apologize for being German and using the word as I was taught:
Unter dem Begriff Souveränität (französischsouveraineté, aus mittellateinisch supernus „darüber befindlich“, „überlegen“) versteht man in der Rechtswissenschaft die Fähigkeit einer juristischen Person zu ausschließlicher rechtlicher Selbstbestimmung.
holothuroid@glyph
I know what you mean. However policies happen when you can get different people on board for an issue. So I'm vaguely positive that the nationalists favor an issue I support for change.
I know what you mean. However policies happen when you can get different people on board for an issue. So I'm vaguely positive that the nationalists favor an issue I support for change.
@holothuroid “it’ll be fine I will just form an alliance of convenience with these xenophobic nationalists in the areas where our policy goals overlap” is a story that rarely has a happy ending
@holothuroid like… I get it, and to some extent I will do the same, but this strategy calls for extreme caution
Epic Null@glyph I do get the idea... but those five problems may be better than just the one (Americain Nationalism).
@Epic_Null it’s a fair cop
River Tae Smith (he/him)@Epic_Null It's an idiom basically meaning 'reasonable point'
Simon Richter@glyph [declaration of independence of cyberspace intensifies]
ginoputrino@glyph Agreed. I think the way to solve this problem is to always have three main planks in mind when building systems:
1) Open source
2) Ability to Self-host
3) Interoperability/Data Portability
To my mind these are all as important as each other.
mkj@ginoputrino I think your 2) ability to self-host should rather be something like "can be run and used independent of any specific other party". If you have that, then the ability to self-host often naturally follows. (It may be complex, but it ought to be possible.) Without it, even with the ability to self-host, you are still beholden to the whims of someone else.
Absolutely 100% agree on interoperability and data portability. Without that, pretty much everything does fall apart!
Murat Kaan@glyph Multinational corporation = Globalization who hate national sovereignty. Open Source is a tool for nations to protect themselves against that multinational force.
Nuwagaba Gift@muratk5n
Do nations know how to use that tool?
Do nations know how to use that tool?
@nuwagaba2 "China relies heavily on Linux, utilizing it extensively in government agencies, state-owned enterprises, supercomputing, and mobile devices. To achieve technological independence from foreign proprietary software like Microsoft Windows, the country has developed its own homegrown Linux distributions, such as OpenKylin and Deepin."
ansuz@glyph "Sovereignty" as a concept loses a lot of lustre when you have Brexit as an acute lesson in what that means in practice. Personal sovereignty also gives me the piss jitters because of libertarian psychos and their "sovereign citizen" rhetoric. I know it's not the same as having some form of autonomy over the tech in your life but I can't shake it.
microplastic@glyph "we hate those multinational conglomerates. let's make everyone dependent on a national one!! viva la COUNTRY_NAME"
Amin Girasol@glyph that you for articulating that this "sovereignty" label is really a cover for a retreat into nationalism. Even terms like "sovereign European software" makes me deeply unconformable. Look how European leaders are upping the violent anti-immigration rhetoric and sabre-rattling against Russia. Europe is not going in a better direction than the US.
Any talk of worker solidarity between users and developers is being drowned by this new jingoistic framing.
https://gaelduval.com/joining-the-wave-murena-e-os-2026-roadmap/
🫧 Social coding commonsI am afraid "sovereignty" has become a business-world hype cycle word, like "digital transformation" was not long ago, but has lost its shine now. Vapid marketing words that indicate where the money is, and that *must* be used to win a pitch, esp. with gov institutions. The more the better.
@smallcircles @glyph right, hence its use by European companies building on a base of free software and desiring state funding or custom, like Nextcloud GmbH¹ and Murena SAS².
In a way, hearing that "sovereignty" is now a vapid marketing term is a relief, because it may mean the politics embedded in the term have been diluted or lost. But it's still a shibboleth, isn't it?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GmbH
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_par_actions_simplifi%C3%A9e
Note that I think most people have the right idea and values when they say tech sovereignty, and pursue it. It is just that big corporate finds it an effective revenue increasing word too. I liked @glyph follow-up toot, mentioning solidarity, that emphasizes more the social side, not just the tech aspects.
@smallcircles yes, I specifically mentioned solidarity before I saw @glyph's follow up.
I, too, far prefer solidarity to sovereignty.
Corporations might be alright with sovereignty, but they sure as fuck don't want anything to do with solidarity.
Tim
MackajPeople in Europe worried about digital sovereignty aren't acting because their goal is open source sustainability. They don't want foreign interests to have the ability to snoop or switch off critical parts of their infrastructure when political winds change. It's as simple as that.
sofia ☮️🏴@mackaj @glyph autonomy and sovereignty are not the same.
you can have autonomy over yourself, your devices and the relationships you have with others.
you can only have sovereignty about other people. it's about power, not freedom. and power is exactly the problem here.
i did a longer writeup about that here: https://chaos.social/@sofia/115831611054633916
Joanna Holman@glyph @pat and at the other end of the spectrum, there’s plenty of people using technology in countries that are small or economically disadvantaged in ways that mean for the foreseeable future they will necessarily be reliant on tech from elsewhere. People in Timor-Leste or Somalia deserve access to safe, useful tech just as much as people in Germany.
Roy Brown
J Miller
Mick 🇨🇦@glyph I am sympathetic to this perspective, but I just read it as shorthand for “US tech can not be trusted, and we need homegrown solutions that can be.”
Is there a better framing that does the same work?
“No AWS or Azure for the delivery of digital services to Canadians” doesn’t have the same ring to it at all.
@glyph China did this before with introduction of HarmonyOS and Huawei. This is the only way to avoid American "MuLtinationAl" corporations.
The other way is to protest outside of Wall-Street for 300$/6h.