Don’t hand over your keys: the case for Open Source Software
Tags:
open_source
Date: 2025-03-28
While supporting open source might have once been dismissed as a choice for digital-age hippies, today not only it has become a political decision, but a matter of responsibility.
Imagine your country has purchased military fighter jets from an allied nation. Now imagine that for some reason this ally suddenly becomes hostile. Would you be happy to discover that the aircraft have a "kill-switch" that can render them unusable? Several European countries that have purchased American F-35s find themselves in exactly this situation (to be honest, they can't even determine with certainty whether this kill-switch exists or not).
There are two ways to interpret this story. The first is that we cannot hand over important aspects of our lives to proprietary software (or rather, software that is not our property), and the second is that Europe can no longer afford to depend on others, not even from a technological standpoint.
Let me give another example. During the first Trump administration, American companies were ordered to cut all ties with Chinese company Huawei. Without support from Microsoft and Google, Huawei was forced to replace the operating system of their devices with their own "Harmony OS" (they were able to do this precisely because of the availability of open source software).
Try to imagine what would happen if something like this were to happen to a country, instead of a company. Imagine what would happen to public administration, businesses, and students if one day they could no longer use Windows. The consequences would be catastrophic. This is the risk when you hand over your house keys to strangers.
Since it's not possible for everyone to develop their own software from scratch, decentralization is the second best solution to this problem. Even though it's impossible to keep track of everything that happens behind the scenes when we use software, relying on open source software at least ensures that someone has checked it for us.
Open source is a collective effort, a gift from the community to the rest of humanity.
As a European citizen, it would be essential that at this historical moment public administration makes an effort to adopt open software, even at the cost of taking a small (temporary) step back in terms of efficiency. For example, the proposal for an "EU OS" (https://eu-os.gitlab.io/) deserves to be explored.
At the same time, we must realize that the spark must come from all of us. On https://github.com/geraldohomero/best-foss-alternatives you can find a list of open-source software with which you could replace what you currently use.
If there is no alternative to technology now, then it's best that this technology be as transparent as possible.
If you believe in a secure and free internet, it's time to make an effort, even if this might mean giving up some convenience.