The EU is probably the leading body of government trying to drive FOSS adoption.
The EU is probably the leading body of government trying to drive FOSS adoption.
Except those regulations hurt the little guys more than the big companies.
Even if the big companies can't buy their way out of compliance, compliance inherently costs less for them and regulatory bodies are more willing to work with a big company than a small group of hobbyists, leading to the big company being able to follow the law with nary a hiccup whereas the hobbyists get destroyed by zealous enforcement.
This is often somewhat true. However, as I have observed in several USA contexts, large organizations are often exempted (whether explicitly or not) from pesky new regulations, citing this very point. For example, I personally attended a California PUC meeting in which VZN and SBC were exempted from "lifeline" regulations that continued to be imposed (with nonzero costs) on the small CLEC that employed me. Large organizations have to keep lawyers and lobbyists employed, so they might as well keep them busy. Creating regulations and exempting themselves is common practice.
Perhaps things work differently in Europe.
In practice, a lot of companies stop growing just below the limit, and e.g. split in parts that have supplier relations to each other. No, we don't have 2000 employees. We are a group of 200 companies, owned by the same owners, and having 10 employees each.
There is also impact on worker protection. If your people go on strike, or if you want to do mass layoffs, you just dissolve a few companies.
I presume board requirements are a lot smaller for such tiny companies, too.