What Is Digital Sovereignty
5 hours ago
- Digital sovereignty means ensuring that nothing essential can be taken away, not owning everything or having unlimited choice.
- The control camp (owning all infrastructure) is impractical and misses the point; sovereignty is not about holding possessions.
- The choice camp (vendor-neutral selection) confuses initial freedom with the ability to exit; true sovereignty requires reversibility.
- Open standards must be both persistent (readable long-term) and reimplementable (anyone can build compatible tools).
- ODF exemplifies reimplementability, while OOXML offers persistence without full reimplementation, keeping sovereignty with the vendor.
- The most critical decision for sovereignty is the native document format, as it determines whether essential data can be taken elsewhere.