[apatheticonion]

Then invest in and attract people to build it. I'd move to Europe if the salary was competitive.

IMO start by funding the living crap out of open source projects. Mandate that hardware sold in the EU comes with unlocked bootloaders and documentation sufficient to develop drivers from.

Relax IP protections so developers are allowed to reverse engineer products and build derivative works from them (extending the life of, facilitating compatibility).

Ban security systems used by big companies that enforce OS conformity (like kernel based anti-cheat, or banks disabling tap-to-pay on phones running beta android/rooted).

Double down on platform interoperability - e.g. Allow me to write a chat app that uses Facebook messenger as a back end.

Hey-ho there you go, European competitors to Android/iOS will pop up overnight. Asahi Linux and other OSes will get a shot in the arm (ha).

[workfromspace]

> Then invest in and attract people to build it. I'd move to Europe if the salary was competitive.

True that. Also in many countries in Europe, IT jobs are not "special" anymore and salaries are similar to the median.

[apatheticonion]

There's no profit in technology so there's no interest in starting a business leading to low demand for workers.

Stimulate the sector directly through investment and indirectly by enabling competition and the demand for jobs will increase - following with it salaries.

Cash injection isn't enough though, if you don't break down monopolistic barriers, businesses will fail regardless

[karussell]

Isn't the salary difference more about differences between Silicon Valley (or Big tech in US) and Europe?

One competitive advantage of the US is probably that often equity is involved (although this can be a disadvantage too if it replaces money and doesn't come on top).

Also don't forget that in Europe you often have a better safety net (especially if you loose a job) and lower rent.

[bethekidyouwant]

Yes, what europe needs is way more regulation

[apatheticonion]

I'm talking about provisions to increase competition in the free market - not classical "corporations bad" regulations.

Companies like Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft thrive off competition barriers.

For example;

Why is Asahi Linux on the MacBook not daily drivable? Because we can't write drivers and require non-scalable geniuses to reverse engineer hardware from photos of circuit boards.

Why can't you install an alternative to Android or iOS on your phone? Because we can't write drivers and/or the hardware blocks you from even trying.

Preventing monopolies from ring-fencing empowers the free market through competition enablement. Ultimately, it's impractical to tell us non Americans that you need to build a hardware and software stack entirely from scratch and have that be competitive within a few years.

Without those barriers - perhaps the EU would have a homegrown mobile operating system. Perhaps Linux desktop adoption would be bostered enough to justify further investment in OSS initiatives.

[bethekidyouwant]

Your android phone is made by Koreans.

[apatheticonion]

Yes, anti competitive practices are good for business regardless of geography.

Americans may be the biggest offenders but the pro-competition rules should apply to all.

Personally, I have the skills and interest to write a custom OS for my phone (Linux, custom DE, and waydroid for Android compat) - but it's literally impossible to due to anti competitive practices (I can't reverse engineer drivers and clean room driver development is practically impossible).

Similar story for my router, my "smart" TV and arm64 MacBook pro (or even an arm64 surface laptop).

[type0]

My Android phone is made by Chinese and all the patents are held by Americans