Germany opposes French push to tax US big tech in tariff war
Germany opposes French push to tax US big tech in tariff war
www.euractiv.com
Germany opposes French push to tax US big tech in tariff war
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24 comments
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Germany can't decide. Every few weeks I see an article that says "German city/company/institution is Ditching MS for Open Source", and the next article is "Germany Cucked by Microsoft for Ten Billionth Time." Can we just completely ditch all MS and agree to an open standard?
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I think it is certain German States vs. German federal government.
Like New York vs. USA's policy.
But yes. All government should move away from Microsoft and Google suites.
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Germany is not one person. Ditching Microsoft is the effort of more regional politics. Talking about the US and things as a whole, that is national politics, which has just been elected and are currently showing that it was not a good election.
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Kukies justified Germany's position for not taxing digital services by saying that the EU had not alternatives to US data centres, cloud, and artificial intelligence services.
I think Germany is a great source of experience in how dropping these Big Tech companies would impact everything. It's not weird for them to be against it because it makes it so European countries and Germany have more time to make the needed changes in tech infrastructure so they can do it themselves too.
Europeans are slow and steady. Minds are most likely already set on dropping US reliance. It just doesn't need to be pushed right away.
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Munich of all places offers an interesting case study on open source software in German public service. They ditched MS 21 years ago despite Bill Gates' personal lobbying of mayor Christian Ude. But they had to go back eventually because they simply couldn't make the alternative (based on a custom Linux implementation with Libre Office) work. They've now shifted to using open source as much as possible without sacrificing interoperability.
This page has a great writeup on the topic: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/document/munichs-long-history-open-source-public-administration
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They had to go back, because Microsoft moved it's German Headquarters to Munich (and thus paying corporate taxes there)in a backroom deal with the Mayor
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Thanks for sharing. I remember reading about this while it was happening. Interested to see how it turned out.
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It's almost like German Government and it's federalism isn't a monolith. 🤦♂️
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24 comments