There is now also an English version of this page with more EU relevance! Media: BNR, TenneT wil regels zien voor apps voor zonnepanelen en waarschuwt voor black-outs. Recent weer in het nieuws, een Nederlandse hacker kon 4 miljoen zonnepaneelsystemen overnemen (FTM, Euractiv). En dit was niet de eerste keer dat zoiets gebeurde. Zoals gebruikelijk weer veel dank voor de proeflezers en experts die mee hebben gedacht over dit artikel & zeer waardevolle bijdragen en kennis geleverd hebben!| Bert Hubert's writings
Recently a Dutch hacker was able to take control of 4 million solar panel installations (FTM (Dutch), Euractiv, Victor Gevers). And this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened either (PV Magazine). As usual, huge thanks are due to the many beta readers and experts who helped improve this article with their feedback, valuable insights and knowledge! This post was machine translated (not too well) from the original Dutch version, which was also more focused on The Netherlands.| Bert Hubert's writings
Dit is een licht verbeterde versie van mijn praatje op 7 juni op de Public Spaces conferentie in Amsterdam, en ik wil de organisatie graag bedanken voor hun uitnodiging, en het publiek voor de goede vragen & reacties zelfs al tijdens het praatje. Vind de oorspronkelijke slides met notities hier. Of, voor wie zin heeft, hier is de oorspronkelijke video. Nou, wat fijn dat jullie er allemaal zijn. Ik heb misschien een wat ander, minder technisch verhaal dan vele mensen die mij voorgingen hier.| Bert Hubert's writings
This is post was translated from Dutch using a locally run copy of the Mixtral LLM, using a very low-end GPU. I did some light editing here and there, but the translation is mostly fully automatic. The short version: organizations often hesitate for many years before outsourcing tasks, particularly in the field of ICT (Information and Communication Technology). During those years, valuable ICT employees leave because constantly justifying their own existence is frustrating.| Bert Hubert's writings
There’s now also an English version of this post. De hele korte versie: organisaties twijfelen vaak vele jaren over het uitbesteden van dingen, met name ICT. Gedurende die jaren vertrekken de goede ICT-mensen, want steeds je eigen bestaan moeten rechtvaardigen is rot. Op termijn gaat er dan weleens iets goed mis, en is de keuze daarna makkelijk: we kunnen en willen dit niet meer zelf doen. Maar door jaren te twijfelen heb je het daar zelf naar gemaakt.| Bert Hubert's writings
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. Feedback is very welcome on bert@hubertnet.nl. I’d also like to thank the many proofreaders, but all mistakes remain mine! In the world of (high) technology, Europe is exceptionally weak at innovating. There are many ways to explain how this came to be, and a lot of the discussion focuses on unfair business conditions and regulation. In this post however I want to talk about important cultural and social reasons tha...| Bert Hubert's writings
This part of the history of PowerDNS is mostly about our business adventures & merger with Open-Xchange. The technical history of this period is described in part 3a. Business In 2013, PowerDNS was in a crucial phase. Existing business was going well, but we were receiving pointed signals there was trouble on the horizon. Some existing customers were close to deserting us, because we could not provide them with the top-down attention other vendors were lavishing on them.| Bert Hubert's writings
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. Europe’s communication needs are currently almost exclusively delivered by Chinese hardware that connects us to US-based platforms. For a variety of reasons, this is not a good idea. As stated recently by Charles Michel, President of the European Council, “Interdependence is natural, even desirable. Over-dependence, however, is not”. Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash At the core, the problem is that almost no co...| Bert Hubert's writings
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. Recently I participated in a very useful panel that aimed to demystify European digital sovereignty. Even though we spoke for more than an hour (video), we obviously were not able to fix all of Europe’s sovereignty problems! The event was organized by Scaleway (previously Online SAS or Online.net), a 100% subsidiary of what I think is Europe’s most innovative telecommunications company, Iliad.| Bert Hubert's writings
Over the past few years I’ve been writing a lot about innovation, and specifically, the lack thereof in Europe. I also touch on how we’ve outsourced a ton of operational capabilities, leaving us relatively helpless. By now this is such a huge amount of words, audio and video that it is in dire need of a summary, if only to see if it makes any kind of sense taken together.| Bert Hubert's writings