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].

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].

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]

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

[^1]: ZDNet - Europe's plan to ditch US tech giants is built on open source - and it's gaining steam

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[–] vogo13@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] BenjiRenji@feddit.org 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, you can't expect the whole net of dependency to be torn down that quickly when it took decades to be established. Especially if you want a somewhat normal life.

Even before the latest acceleration into fascism I kept looking for alternatives of almost everything I use and the pain is something I've just got used to when it started with switching to Linux only over 20 years ago. Of course I still get envious when iPhone users just quickly AirDrop some pics, so I get why it's not always easy to switch to alternatives.

But alternatives exist. Exploring them has become a lot more mainstream and they get more funding and support.

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

When you and your wife send pics over KDE Connect instead is a powerful moment. Still requires one phone to connect to the other over hotspot or be on the same network at home, but its slick otherwise.

[–] meekah@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wait, KDE connect can go straight from one phone to another? That sounds awesome. I know it's a great piece of software, but that makes it even greater.

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Yep, just make sure to set the permissions so you're not sending notifications to the other phone (if it's someone else's) or allowing remote control of yours. Just enable file sharing or whatever you want, and maybe allow them to do the find my phone ring thing.

[–] bravemonkey@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] _donnadie_@feddit.cl 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's pixelfed for an Instagram alternative, which is based on the activitypub protocol. If flashes is built on bluesky I don't think it will make much of a difference if the protocol is controlled by a company.

[–] Batmorous@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I completely forgot about Pixelfed. Haven't tried it yet any clients you would recommend for it?

[–] _donnadie_@feddit.cl 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There's the Pixelfed app, Pixelix and PixelDroid. Of the three I'd say the most functional is PixelDroid, but the interface isn't as good as the others. Pixelix feels faster than Pixelfed but in my phone it has an issue with JSON saying I'm unauthenticated.

The Pixelfed app works, but it's a bit slow, and doesn't have as much functionality as PixelDroid. PixelDroid lets you easily see all feeds (feeds for people you follow, local and global feeds), which Pixelfed somehow doesn't let you access, which kinda destroys the point of using a federated social network.

[–] Batmorous@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Interesting I'll check them out appreciate the suggestion too

[–] ewigkaiwelo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was trying to look up this discord alternative you mentioned - Stoat, but only found water simulation software, any link?

[–] Batmorous@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Here is their alternativeto.net info page: https://alternativeto.net/software/revolt-chat/about/ (Great website to find open source alternatives to other stuff as well)

And here is their actual website: https://stoat.chat/

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

I don't use Android, Google, Linkedin, Indeed, or FB, and I don't even know what IG is. I didn't bother to close the accounts. Canada has no credit card yet. I paid for MS software before US GOP went nuts.