What the European Commission is doing is the right thing, then.

It is a "call for evidence", not a directive. It can be summarized as: for our software needs, we depend too much on non-EU countries, we heard about this open source thing, will it solve our problem?

They studied the political aspect (dependence on non-EU countries), that's their job. They are now asking experts about the technical aspect.

> Politics should never drive technical decisions

This can never be true. Politics drives all decisions.

National politics may not. But assuming technical decisions are made on an aethereal plane above humanity is just assuming away complexity. It's the excuse of a technical team that developed something superb for no actual user.

I actually think it's a great idea to minimize government dependence on specific vendors at a policy level.

Perhaps these policies shouldn't be too detailed, but signing away future freedom ('nobody ever fired for choosing $entranched_bigcorp') should not be the path of least resistance for decision makers.

Fully agree!

At first your comment reads as negative, but you actually like this "call for evidence" then, as they're explicitly asking for feedback about it? Not sure why it reads so negative when you're actually seemingly agreeing with the submission.

This shows that the people in charge have no idea. If they understood the topic, there would be no need for evidence.

This is exactly the kind of backwards thinking that pushes people against inquisition and consultation. They people in charge have a good idea of the playing field but it's always good to ask for input.

Can't you have some idea, yet want to validate this with the broader ecosystem? I frequently ask people for their opinion about stuff, even when I have my opinion. Should commissions/governments not do that? Seems like a fantasy to think your government could know everything without asking the population what they think.

> the people in charge have no idea. If they understood the topic, there would be no need for evidence

A technically-superior solution nobody wants to use is useless.