When a company with a trillion-dollar market cap argues that open-source software will hurt economic growth, it's worth taking a very close look at the argument.

Google has come out against Europe's plan to push public institutions toward open-source software, with Kent Walker, the company's president of global affairs and chief legal officer, warning that the initiative would stifle innovation and harm European competitiveness. As reports indicate, Walker argued that "the market moves more quickly than laws" and that regulatory friction would leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he called "the most competitive technological transition we've ever seen."

Let me translate this into plain language: Google's argument is that Europe should keep paying Google for software because open-source alternatives would slow the economy.

Now let's look at what the European Commission's own analysis says. The EU found that open-source software already contributes €65-95 billion annually to EU GDP, with a 10% increase in contributions potentially generating €100 billion in additional economic growth. That's the opposite of Google's prediction.

The initiative itself targets public institutions - government offices, public administration, state-funded institutions. It's not a mandate for businesses or private citizens to abandon commercial software. The stated goal is digital sovereignty: ensuring that critical government infrastructure isn't entirely dependent on foreign commercial entities.

I've been in enough startup boardrooms to recognize this playbook. When incumbents are threatened by regulatory change, they frame that change as dangerous to everyone - consumers, innovation, the economy - rather than dangerous to their market position. The argument always involves some version of: "The current system works. Why risk disruption?"

The honest version of Google's concern is simpler: Google profits enormously from government software contracts across Europe. Google Workspace is widely deployed in European public institutions. Microsoft's Office products are similarly entrenched. A serious push toward open-source alternatives - LibreOffice, Nextcloud, Linux-based systems - would directly reduce revenue from these institutional customers.

That's a legitimate business interest. It's just not the same thing as European citizens' interest.

The genuine debate about public sector open-source adoption is more nuanced than either side presents. Migration costs are real. Training costs are real. Interoperability challenges with existing workflows are real. A poorly managed transition from commercial to open-source software in a large government institution can be genuinely expensive and disruptive.

But those are implementation challenges, not arguments against the goal. The underlying principle - that public institutions shouldn't be entirely captive to a small number of foreign commercial software vendors - is sound.

Germany, France, and several other European countries have run successful open-source migrations in government contexts. The evidence that it can work exists. What Google is really arguing is that Europe shouldn't try - and that argument deserves exactly the skepticism you'd apply to any incumbent defending its market position.