> Just like the US didn't need to rediscover the inventions of cars, submarines, the web, the printed press and more to be able to build better iterations on those, wouldn't the exact same apply the other way?
Running a software business in Europe is not against the laws of physics or anything, but it is also worth considering why Europe doesn’t already have a thriving software sector. The US shooting itself in the foot might help a little, but there are still lots of internal barriers, like those outlined in the Draghi report.
> but it is also worth considering why Europe doesn’t already have a thriving software sector
Why is that your impression of the software sector in Europe? Just because there isn't a "Eat the whole world Google/Amazon/Microsoft" company that ends up in American business-news, doesn't mean the it isn't one of the most well-paid and comfortable sectors in the continent, just like everywhere else, compared to other sectors.
I think as a whole it seems like Europe in general and particularly the EU has a lot more focuses than just "Tech Innovation", although it's still one part needing improvement. Even the report you referenced mentions the energy sector as a top priority, and slow steps are taken to upgrade infrastructure at all sorts of levels and sectors.
Software is but one part of life, but of course many of us here get lost in focusing a lot on software itself, I'm guilty of it myself too.
I'm not making any normative judgements, just descriptive ones. Maybe the way Europe is right now is perfect, far be it from me to say otherwise, I don't even live there.
But in the context of "digital sovereignty," it seems to me that so many giant pillars of tech (desktop OSes, mobile OSes, cloud platforms, enterprise crap like Salesforce, and so on) are managed by American firms. So if Europe wanted to take all of those things in house, that would require a significant expansion of the European software sector. And that wouldn't be super straightforward due to the many obstacles to things like venture capital funding outlined in the Draghi report.
Now I'm more than a little skeptical of the whole "digital sovereignty" concept. There's a reason every country doesn't it make it's own airplanes, cars, wine, espresso machines, and medical devices; those reasons apply more or less equally to software development. The cost of “sovereignty” is very, very high. But, if we do buy into the idea that countries need to diversify away from American software, I think that necessarily entails a large increase in the software sector of places like Europe.
Running a software business in Europe is not against the laws of physics or anything, but it is also worth considering why Europe doesn’t already have a thriving software sector. The US shooting itself in the foot might help a little, but there are still lots of internal barriers, like those outlined in the Draghi report.